Joffrey Devillers, husband of Nadine Devillers, a victim of the Notre-Dame attack in Nice, has just published his wife’s memoirs.
Joffrey Devillers holding his wife’s memoirs, “Stop Playing the Victim!” published on October 14. ©MI / Actu Nice
Exactly a year ago, on October 29, 2020, Nadine Devillers, 60 years old, was killed by Brahim Aissaoui in the Notre-Dame Basilica in Nice. To pay tribute to her, her husband Joffrey Devillers published her memoirs which she started writing three years ago, thus fulfilling her dream.
“Stop Playing the Victim!”
In her autobiography, Nadine recounts a difficult childhood. Born from an extramarital relationship, she was not acknowledged by her father, who refused to let her call him Dad. Abused by her nannies, raped in her teens, and a witness to the domestic violence her mother endured, she fought to escape the precarious life she led in the Var before moving to Nice, a place that had always captivated her.
“Stop Playing the Victim!”, a phrase frequently repeated by her father, spans 376 pages of Nadine’s life, who despite all the hardships she endured, “always maintained her zest for life,” confides her husband to 20 minutes.
Fulfilling her dream
She began writing her memoirs “as a form of therapy.” Joffrey also mentions that Nadine wanted them to be published, so when he was contacted by a publishing house following the tragedy, he seized the opportunity to “fulfill her dream”.
