Bataclan
Several people pretended they were present during the Paris Attacks. Charles Platiau/ Reuters

A Frenchman known only as Cedric R will spend six months in prison after lying about being present during the terrorist attacks that killed 130 in Paris on 13 November 2015, and trying to get money of out it.

During his trial, R said: "I'm going to be honest and am not going to hide behind lies, something I've done all my life."

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He admitted going back to the Bataclan on 14 November, to look at the flowers deposited by mourning Parisians. "I saw a woman crying. She told me she was there. I wanted to talk to her. To not seem nosy I told her I was also there."

The public prosecutor asked for two years of jail time: "For the real victims, for the price of deception." R will only spend 6 months in jail, with an extra 18 months suspended.

The lie that never stops

In the aftermath of the Paris attack, R appeared on several TV programs, recounting his alleged ordeal in detail. He claimed to have been at the Bataclan on the evening of the terror attack and having witnessed a woman take several bullets in front of him.

"I have gone to see the entrance of the Bataclan every night ever since," he told AFP at the time.

He even mentioned having kept the "Bataclan trousers" he wore on the fateful evening.

But his story is a complete fabrication.

False testimony is not a crime in France, but fraud is, and that's what R was charged with after it was discovered he had tried to get compensation money reserved for the actual victims of the attacks.

In 2016, Life for Paris, an association created shortly after the terrorist plot decided to verify the testimony of about 650 people on their radar. They quickly realised that the stories of a handful of people, including R's, didn't add up.

Unbeknown to R, the police was also taking a closer look at his case and tried to map out his 13 November evening.

R's mobile phone betrayed him. While the shooting started at the Bataclan, his phone was several miles away, on a French highway, the A13.

When news got around of the shootings occurring in Paris, R raced to Paris, and arrived in time for the final assault on the Bataclan. He took shelter with other civilians hiding in a nearby bar.

The police can't find the woman who supposedly took bullets for him either.