The trial opened on Wednesday 8 September 2021. The accused were asked to confirm their personal details and Abdeslam made an angry outburst from the box, saying that he gave up all professions to become a warrior of the Islamic State. Preliminaries completed, on the third day the president of the court read out his report summarising the charges against the accused. The events of 13 November 2015 were described, and the names of the dead at each location were read out. During the second and third weeks of the trial the court heard evidence from scenes-of-crime investigators and the Belgian investigating judge Isabelle Panou. On 22 September one of the first two police officers to enter the Bataclan theatre gave evidence. The commissioner from the anti-criminal brigade () described how he and his driver had arrived at the theatre about ten minutes after the shooting started, entered the theatre and shot one of the terrorists, before retreating under fire from the other two gunmen. On 24 September it was the turn of the director of the Medico-legal Institute to give evidence. From 28 September for five weeks, testimony was heard from the bereaved and survivors of the attacks, around 350 in all. At the beginning of November, the accused were questioned for the first time, but only about their backgrounds and childhoods. Questions about their radicalisation or about the actual charges were reserved for later dates. The following week, the court sat on only two days, taking a break Thursday and Friday 11–12 November for
Armistice Day and for the day preceding the seventh annual commemoration of the Paris attacks. On Tuesday 9 November, evidence was heard from two investigators from the
General Directorate for Internal Security (, DGSI). On Wednesday 10 November,
François Hollande, who had been
President of France at the time of the attacks, testified before the court. On Tuesday 16 November, the court heard testimony from Hugo Micheron, a writer on jihadism, and the former heads of the internal and external security directorates. On Wednesday it was the turn of former prime-minister
Bernard Cazeneuve and public prosecutor François Molins. The rest of the week, and the following two and a half weeks, testimony was heard from investigators from the DGSI, Belgian investigators and an Austrian investigator. From Thursday 9 December for five days, the court started to hear testimony from relatives and friends of the accused and also of the terrorists who had carried out the attacks. On 17 December, the final day before the end of year break, the former head of DGSI, Patrick Calvar, appeared before the court. The end of year break was prolonged by a week due to a case of COVID amongst the accused and the court reconvened on 11 January 2022. For four days the accused were cross-examined on their radicalisation and on events up to August 2015, before the court was again suspended for a week due to more cases of COVID in the box. There followed a further three weeks of cross-examination of the accused. On 9 February Abdeslam, who had maintained his right to silence since his arrest six years earlier, spoke for the first time about his role in the attacks, saying that he had never killed or injured anyone. The court was suspended for two weeks from 15 February to 1 March, again due to cases of COVID amongst the accused, and then heard evidence from Belgian investigators concerning the properties used as hide-outs by the terrorists. From 10 March for ten days the accused were cross-examined over the final preparations for the attacks. On 28 March the court reached its 100th day of hearings and turned to the arrival in Paris of the terrorists on 12 November 2015 and the attacks themselves. On 30 March Abdeslam refused to answer questions about the evening of 13 November 2015, having previously claimed that he had backed out of detonating his suicide vest at the last minute. An explosives expert testified that the suicide vest had been in a non-functioning state when found in a rubbish bin a week after the attacks, casting doubt on Abdeslam's claims. On 1 April, at the request of the victims' association Life for Paris and after a debate the previous day, the court was shown photographs of the Bataclan and heard extracts from a sound recording of the attack. The following week the court heard evidence about Abdeslam's escape from Paris and about the co-ordination of the attacks from Brussels. On 8 April, the court heard the anonymous testimony of "Sonia", who had denounced
Abdelhamid Abaaoud following the attacks. On 12 April, Abdeslam broke his silence to give his version of his role in the attacks and the next three days were taken up with his cross-examination. Abdeslam claimed he had gone into a bar in the
18th arrondissement with the intention of detonating his suicide vest but had changed his mind at the last minute, out of humanity. The court then, from 20 to 22 April, heard three days' of evidence from psychiatrists and psychologists who had examined some of those accused. There was a week's break for the spring holidays, before the court heard evidence from sociologist Bernard Rougier, writer
Mohamed Sifaoui and the former antiterrorist judge Marc Trévidic. There were then a further five days of testimony from civil parties, interrupted for a week by another case of COVID in the box. The trial entered its final stages on 23 May with nine days of closing speeches by lawyers for the civil parties. Some of the lawyers collaborated to speak on themes, while others spoke for the victims they represented. The three prosecutors then had three days to make their closing speeches, summing up the evidence and recommending sentences. The defence lawyers made their closing speeches over the next ten days, with, on Friday 24 June, the final word being given to the lawyers of Abdeslam. On Monday 27 June, the 148th and last day of the trial, the court, convening for the only time in the morning, heard final statements from the accused. The judges then retired to a secret location to consider their verdicts, scheduled to be delivered on the evening of Wednesday 29 June. ==Verdicts==