Wednesday was eagerly anticipated as a crucial day at the Paris attacks trial. Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the suicide killers who murdered 130 people on the night of 13 November 2015, was to give his version of what really happened. The public benches were packed. The media showed up in droves. And Abdeslam invoked his right to silence. Consternation!
"I don't wish to say anything today," Salah Abdeslam announced straight off. The shock and frustration were palpable.
Court president Jean-Louis Périès was at his patient best, supporting the witness in his decision to exercise a right which is guaranteed by French law, attempting, nonetheless, to convince Abdeslam that his silence would help neither his own cause nor comfort the families of victims, dozens of whom were present to hear his testimony.
"It's beyond me. I'm sorry. I simply can't answer questions today."
Salah Abdeslam was allowed to sit down.
There followed the empty ritual of interrogation without response. The judges, the prosecution, the various legal teams, posed their carefully prepared questions, each answered by silence.
In the face of that silence, the French legal profession deployed its rhetorical gamut from A to B.
Nicolas Le Bris, the clearly very angry attorney-general, called Abdeslam a liar and a coward. In an outburst which would have provoked a mistrial in an Anglo-Saxon courtroom, he also called the suspect a "terrorist".
"Your silence," declared bristling Le Bris, "is further proof of your cowardice. It is clear that a lack of courage is part of the fundamental make-up of all terrorists."
Luckily for Le Bris, under French law, the state alone is allowed to believe in the implicit guilt of those it accuses, even before a verdict has been handed down.
An afternoon of intense emotional tension
The lawyers representing the families attempted various strategies.
Questions were posed politely, brusquely, whingeingly, violently. The witness remained unmoved.
And then it was the turn of Maitre Josserand-Schmidt. She was remarkable.
She quietly explained that the lawyers representing the families had no trick questions, that they were in court to act on behalf of the suffering bereaved, whose only wish was to understand.
For the first time all afternoon, Salah Abdeslam looked directly at his questioner, nodding or shaking his head in response to her presentation, occasionally smiling behind his mask.
The emotional tension was extreme.
"There are so many things they want to know," Josserand-Schmidt continued. "About the explosive vest. About why you didn't set it off. Did you think of alerting the police? Why did you cry on the evening of your final meeting with your girlfriend? Of course you understand the pain of loss, of bereavement . . ."
And then, at 15H07 precisely, Salah Abdeslam began to speak.
He started by repeating the propaganda claim that the Paris attacks were in revenge for International Coalition air-raids against Islamic State in Syria.
"To ensure a fair trial, you would have to hear the testimony of the woman who lost her six children in a bombing raid" in Syria. "If you look only at what Islamic State did, and not what the French state did, you can't make a balanced judgement.
"Yes, I sincerely loved my fiancée and wanted to marry her. If I did shed a tear or two that evening, it was because she was talking about our future together, kids, an apartment, and I knew that I was going to have to go to Syria.
"I had been warned I'd have major problems because of my support for IS, and I knew that the best thing was to go there.
"Everything changed on 12 November, when my brother told me Abaaoud wanted to talk to me."
"Did you accept what he proposed? Were you the replacement for Mohamed Abrini?"
"I can't confirm or deny that. But I can say I did not set off my suicide vest, not out of cowardice, not out of fear. I just didn't want to. That's all."
"So, why did you tell members of the terrorist cell in Belgium that your vest had malfunctioned?"
"It was a lie. I was ashamed, afraid of what the others would think of me. I was 25 years old. I was simply ashamed."
Technical evidence on the suicide vest
There was a second witness on Wednesday, the police explosives expert Bruno Vanlerbergue, and he was prepared to talk.
His evidence was absolutely clear: there is no way of knowing whether Salah Abdeslam did or did not attempt to explode his suicide vest.
What is certain is that this particular vest had two internal flaws, neither of them obvious to the wearer, which made it impossible for the electrical firing system to work.
For the technically minded, the flaws were, in the first place, a dysfunctional detonator, the tiny bulb which lights briefly and intensely to provide the energy necessary to provoke the explosion. This one was broken, probably in the manufacturing process, and would not light.
Secondly, police discovered a tiny nick in the wire linking the other firing bulb to the 9-volt battery, cutting the copper conductor, ensuring that no power could pass. An accidental stroke with a cutter in the construction of the vest was the most likely cause.
The witness was categorical. Salah Abdeslam did not cause either of the flaws which led to his wearing a suicide vest which could not be set off using the electrical detonation system.
The anger of court president Périès
Late in the afternoon, in the wake of the expert witness, Salah Abdeslam again broke silence.
He admitted that the vest found in Montrouge was the one he had been wearing. He explained that he had disconnected the battery and the detonator button because he was afraid the device might be discovered and activated by a child, with disastrous consequences.
That was too much for tribunal president, Jean-Louis Périès.
"Wait a minute, Mr Abdeslam," insisted the president, clearly exasperated. "You had delivered three suicide bombers to the packed Stade de France a few hours earlier, each of them wearing vests just like yours. You knew what they were going to do. And now you tell us you were worried about hurting an innocent passer-by! It makes no sense!"
To which Salah Abdeslam petulently replied: "That proves I was right not to speak earlier. You turn everything against me. Whatever I say, I'm in the wrong. I'll answer no more questions."
The trial continues.
