The Nov. 13, 2015, attacks on the Bataclan theater and elsewhere killed 130 and injured hundreds. "From then on, everybody felt vulnerable," says a victims' advocate. The trial will last nine months.

Transcript

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This week, France begins a trial for those allegedly involved in terror attacks in November 2015. Suicide bombers and gunmen killed 130 people in cafes and restaurants outside France's national stadium and at a concert hall. The complex trial, expected to run for months, will stir up many memories. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED DOCUMENTARY)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking French).

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: As the trial approaches, French media have been looking back at the Paris attacks. This documentary on France Info radio plays some of the chilling 911 calls that flooded the city's emergency system that night.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED DOCUMENTARY)

NICOLAS POIROT: (Speaking French).

BEARDSLEY: Nicolas Poirot, head of the city's ambulance service, recalls how hard it was to comprehend that they were being hit by multiple coordinated attacks.

With that as the backdrop, the trial opens Wednesday. It's expected to go eight months or longer if delayed by the pandemic. It will hear evidence from nearly 1,800 people, including witnesses and victims. There'll be more than 300 lawyers and massive security for the thousands of daily spectators and the media. A special courtroom has been built for the event. It will be one of the rare French trials that is filmed, though footage won't be made public until 50 years from now. Stephane Lacombe worked for a victims' advocacy group at the time of the attacks.

STEPHANE LACOMBE: It's really important for the victims to feel that a democratic state not only supports them but also uses all their skills, resources, time, money, judges to do what they can in order to get some answers.

BEARDSLEY: ISIS claimed the attacks. Only one of the suspected 10 militants who carried them out is alive. The others died that night. Defendant Franco-Belgian Salah Abdeslam will sit in the box, along with 13 others accused of helping plan and provide logistics and weapons. Six more ISIS members, most likely dead in Syria, will be judged in absentia. Victims advocate Lacombe says these attacks made all French people feel vulnerable to terrorism for the first time.

JEAN-LOUIS BRUGUIERE: (Speaking French).

BEARDSLEY: Retired judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere used to head France's anti-terrorism investigation unit. He says such planned, coordinated attacks would be extremely difficult to carry out today.

BRUGUIERE: (Through interpreter) French and Belgian intelligence has been hugely reinforced, and these kinds of attacks are now thwarted because we pick up all the communications. And there is a huge cooperation between nations.

BEARDSLEY: Bruguiere says France has reinforced its anti-terror legislation. Police also have extended powers to search homes and make house arrests without prior judicial approval, measures that have drawn an outcry from civil rights advocates.

The worst carnage from the November attacks was inside the Bataclan concert hall, where three gunmen killed 90 people and wounded hundreds. Alexis Lebrun was there. He knows the trial must take place, but says he is dreading it.

ALEXIS LEBRUN: It's a frightening moment because nine months going through again the Paris attacks is just too much.

BEARDSLEY: Lebrun is a spokesman for Life for Paris, a victims' association formed after the attacks. He considers himself lucky because he wasn't physically injured. And he's largely been able to pick up his life again but says things aren't back to normal.

LEBRUN: You just can't escape the fact that you will never be the same person again. So it changes you forever. So you just have to accept that and deal with the consequences.

BEARDSLEY: The trial, says Lebrun, won't be able to change that.

Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE AMERICAN DOLLAR'S "BLUE SUNGLASSES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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