But he has claimed he discarded his suicide vest and fled the French capital in the chaotic aftermath of the bloodshed, eluding an intense manhunt to return to Molenbeek, the Brussels district where he grew up.

He told the court on Wednesday: “I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t hurt anyone” as he took the stand for the first time in the trial over the jihadist massacres.

“I didn’t cause even a scratch,” Salah Abdeslam told the court in a sudden outburst before he was to be questioned over the worst peacetime atrocity carried out on French soil, which saw 130 people killed. 

 Prosecutors have already established that he spent much of his youth as a pot-smoking fan of nightclubs and casinos.

But they are seeking information on his brother Brahim, who travelled to Syria in early 2015 and detonated his suicide belt in a bar during the Friday night attack in Paris; and on Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged ringleader who was killed by police a few days later.

Abdeslam has been unrepentant so far in court.

In one of a series of outbursts, he said that France “knew the risks” of attacking jihadist targets in Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

After four months of proceedings, the trial – the biggest in modern French history, attended by hundreds of plaintiffs and victims’ relatives – has entered a new phase in which the 14 suspects present are to be questioned.

So far two of Abdeslam’s co-defendants have invoked their right to silence.

“When I look at him, it’s just a feeling of incomprehension. How could he do what he did, what they did?” Philippe Duperron, whose son was killed when the gunmen stormed the Bataclan concert hall, told France 2 television on Wednesday.

“What could explain it? But once again, I think this trial will end without us being able to understand,” said Duperron, who is president of the 13onze15 Fraternite-Verite victims’ association (“November 13, 2015, Brotherhood and Truth”).