There were no tears but laughter, a revival of happy memories spent with Mathis since middle or high school. That young man “radiant”, “so cute”, “radiant”, is preparing to celebrate his 20th birthday in Lille, where he moved at the start of the school year. He didn’t have time, being brutally hit in the city center of the Flanders capital by a speeding car on Saturday 1 November. It was almost 5am when the young man from Pas-de-Calais returned from a Halloween party with his friends.
“He was happy, and his last night was happy,” highlighted one of them, a white t-shirt bearing the style logo of Mathis’s clothing brand, Neptune, worn over a sweater. At the time the tragedy occurred, the gang was crossing, at a green light, at a pedestrian crossing. The driver, a 31 year old man, has been convicted several times “barbarism” and drug trafficking, hit him directly. He tried to escape police inspection, who suspected he had consumed nitrous oxide while driving – a canister was found
