French film on Bataclan massacre shelved after complaints

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French television channel France 2 says it has ceased production on a controversial film about the Bataclan massacre on ice "until all of the victims' groups are consulted".

"Ce soir-la" (That Night), starring Sandrine Bonnaire, is a love story set on the fateful night in November 2015 when Paris was hit by suicide bombs and guns carried out the attack.

But some family members of victims expressed outrage over what they saw as the insensitivity of the movie’s theme.

The controversial love story stars French actress Sandrine Bonnaire. /AFP Photo

Claire Peltier, the partner of one the people murdered at the Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan－where 90 people were slaughtered by jihadist gunmen－had called for the "scandalous" film to be shelved.

She said it was far too soon for "such a painful" story to be revisited.

Filming finished earlier this month, but France 2 downplayed the movie in a statement issued on Friday, saying that production hadn’t been completed, channel directors had not yet seen the unfinished cut and the project didn’t have a broadcast date scheduled.

"No transmission date had been fixed for the film...which has not yet been seen by the station's management," it said in the statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron comforts a relative of a victim who was murdered in the 2015 Bataclan attack, at a commemoration ceremony in November. /AFP Photo

An online petition calling for the film to be scrapped had gathered 36,000 signatures in a month.

"This project shocks and wounds us," said Peltier, who had two children with her murdered partner David. "We are scandalized that such a film could see the light of day so soon after such a violent event."

"Two years on our wounds are still wide open, our grief immense, our lives destroyed," she added.

The main Bataclan victims' group welcomed the decision to postpone the film.

"Even if we have never asked for censorship, we are glad that modesty and restraint have prevailed," Arthur Denouveaux, the head of the Life For Paris group said.

Even so, he insisted that it was "not our role to be a censor".

Source(s): AP ,AFP