Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (; 19 October 1927 – 11 March 1963) was a

French Air Force The French Air and Space Force (AAE) (french: Armée de l'air et de l'espace, ) is the air and space force of the French Armed Forces. It was the first military aviation force in history, formed in 1909 as the , a service arm of the French Army; ...

lieutenant-colonel and military air-weaponry engineer. He was the creator of the

Nord SS.10 The Nord Aviation SS.10 was a MCLOS wire-guided anti-tank missile designed by the French engineer Jean Bastien-Thiry. In American service, the missile was called the MGM-21A. The missile entered service in 1955 with the French Army. It was ...

/ SS.11 missiles. He attempted to assassinate

French President The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (french: Président de la République française), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is ...

Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...

on 22 August 1962, following de Gaulle's decision to accept

Algerian independence An independence referendum was held in French Algeria on 1 July 1962. It followed French approval of the Évian Accords in an April referendum. Voters were asked whether Algeria should become an independent state, co-operating with France; 99.72 ...

. The attack made international headlines. Bastien-Thiry was the last person to be executed by firing squad in France. Though the assassination attempt almost claimed de Gaulle's life, the President and his entire entourage escaped injury. The event is depicted in Frederick Forsyth's novel, ''

The Day of the Jackal ''The Day of the Jackal'' (1971) is a political thriller novel by English author Frederick Forsyth about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French dissident paramilitary organisation, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the Presid ...

'' (1971), and also in the film adaptation of the same name (1973), in which Bastien-Thiry was portrayed by actor

Jean Sorel Jean Sorel (; born 25 September 1934) is a French actor. Born Jean Bernard de Chieusses de Combaud de Roquebrune, he worked extensively in European cinema during the 1960s and 1970s with directors such as Luis Buñuel and Luchino Visconti. How ...

Life

Bastien-Thiry was born to a family of

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

military officers in

Lunéville Lunéville ( ; German, obsolete: ''Lünstadt'' ) is a commune in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. It is a subprefecture of the department and lies on the river Meurthe at its confluence with the Vezouze. History Lun ...

Meurthe-et-Moselle Meurthe-et-Moselle () is a department in the Grand Est region of France, named after the rivers Meurthe and Moselle. It had a population of 733,760 in 2019.RPF. He attended the ''

École polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

'', followed by the ''

École nationale supérieure de l'Aéronautique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Sav ...

'', then entered the

where he specialized in the design of air-to-air missiles. In 1957, he was promoted to principal military air engineer. He was married to Geneviève Lamirand whose father, Georges Lamirand (1899–1994), had been General Secretary of Youth from September 1940 to March 1943 in the government of

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

although the rest of the family was

Free French Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...

.Jean Lacouture, ''Charles de Gaulle – Le souverain 1959-1970'', p. 276-279. Together they had three daughters.

Assassination attempt

Since 1848, the French state had considered

French Algeria French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...

as part of

Metropolitan France Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...

, an integral part of the French nation, as opposed to other French colonies. This did not extend to granting voting rights to its Muslim population. French Algeria also had a large population of Algerian-born Europeans known as ''pied-noirs'', who largely controlled its politics and it economy. After returning to power with the stated intention of maintaining the

French Départements In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety-s ...

of Algeria, in September 1959, de Gaulle reversed his policy and supported the independence of Algeria. Until this time, Bastien-Thiry had been a Gaullist; now he became an opponent. Due to this new policy, two referendums on self-determination were held, the first in 1961 and the second in 1962 (the

French Évian Accords French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

referendum). Bastien-Thiry, who was involved with the still-mysterious organization, "''Vieil État-Major''", tried to make contact with the ''

Organisation armée secrète The ''Organisation Armée Secrète'' (OAS, "Secret Armed Organisation") was a far-right French dissident paramilitary organisation during the Algerian War. The OAS carried out terrorist attacks, including bombings and assassinations, in an att ...

'' (OAS), a paramilitary group opposed to de Gaulle's policy and to the National Liberation Front (FLN). According to Dr Pérez, OAS chief of intelligence and operations section (ORO), a messenger from Vieil État Major, named Jean Bichon, had met Bastien-Thiry in Algiers, but that was as far as it got. Bastien-Thiry never had contact with the OAS organization and he never stated that his direct chief was Jean Bichon, arrested later. Bastien-Thiry led the most prominent of several assassination attempts on de Gaulle. He and his group of three shooters (Lt. Alain de La Tocnaye, Jacques Prevost, and Georges Watin) made preparations in the Paris suburb of

Petit-Clamart Clamart () is a Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. The town is divided into two parts, separated by a forest: ''bas Clamart'', the historical centre, ...

. On 22 August 1962, while Bastien-Thiry functioned as a lookout, de Gaulle's car (a

Citroën DS The Citroën DS () is a Front-mid-engine, front-wheel-drive layout, front mid-engined, front-wheel drive executive car manufactured and marketed by Citroën from 1955 to 1975, in fastback/sedan, wagon/estate, and convertible body configurations ...

) and some nearby shops were raked with machine-gun fire. De Gaulle and his wife and entourage escaped, uninjured. After the attempt, holes from fourteen bullets were found in the president's vehicle, one of which barely missed the president's head; another twenty were found to have struck the nearby Café Trianon; and an additional 187 spent shell casings were found on the pavement. De Gaulle was said to have credited the unusual resilience of the Citroën DS with saving his life: even though the shots had punctured two of the armoured tyres, the car escaped at full speed.

Arrest and trial

Thanks to intelligence gained by the authorities from the interrogation of

Antoine Argoud Antoine Argoud (26 June 1914 – 10 June 2004) was a French Army officer specializing in counter-insurgency during the Algerian War of Independence. Argoud's opposition to Algerian independence from France resulted in his joining of the Organisat ...

, Bastien-Thiry was arrested when he came back from a mission in the United Kingdom. He was brought to trial before a military tribunal presided over by General Roger Gardet, which ran from 28 January to 4 March 1963. He was defended by a legal team consisting of attorneys Jacques Isorni, Richard Dupuy, Bernard Le Coroller, and

Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour (12 October 1907 – 29 September 1989) was a French lawyer and far-right politician. Elected to the National Assembly in 1936, he initially collaborated with the Vichy regime before leaving for Tunisia in 1941. After ...

who was later a candidate for the presidency in 1965. While claiming that the death of de Gaulle would have been justified by the "genocide" of the European population of newly independent Algeria (a reference mainly to the

Oran massacre of 1962 The Oran massacre of 1962 (5 July – 7 July 1962) was the Massacre, mass killing of Pied-Noir and European expatriates living in Algeria by members of the Algerian National Liberation Army (Algeria), National Liberation Army. It took place in Or ...

) and the killing of several tens or hundreds of thousands of mostly pro-French Muslims (''

harki ''Harki'' (adjective from the Arabic ''harka'', standard Arabic ''haraka'' حركة, "war party" or "movement", i.e., a group of volunteers, especially soldiers) is the generic term for native Muslim Algerian who served as auxiliaries in the F ...

s'') by the FLN, he claimed that while the other conspirators might admittedly have been trying to kill the head of state, he had only been attempting to capture de Gaulle so as to deliver him to a panel of sympathetic judges. Bastien-Thiry, who had been certified as "normal" by psychiatrists in spite of a history of clinical depression (caused by a period of overwork), was convicted and sentenced to death, as were two of his accomplices: Lt. de la Tocnaye and Prevost (a former volunteer in Korea and in Vietnam). The only would-be assassin to escape was OAS member Georges Watin (also known as "The Lame Woman" or "The Limp" due to an old war wound), who died in February 1994 at age 71.

Possibility of clemency

As president, de Gaulle had the power of clemency. He pardoned those who fired the shots, but refused to pardon Bastien-Thiry, despite an appeal from Bastien-Thiry's father. Before the trial, the President expressed his intention to grant clemency to Bastien-Thiry, saying the "idiot" would "get off with twenty years and in five years I'll free him". However, according to his son-in-law

Alain de Boissieu Alain de Boissieu Déan de Luigné (; 5 July 1915 – 5 April 2006) was a French general who served in the Free French Forces during World War II, later becoming Army chief of staff (1971–1975). He was the son-in-law of General Charles de Ga ...

, after the conspirators' conviction, de Gaulle stated his reasons for refusing to alter the sentence: # Bastien-Thiry had directed his subordinates to fire on a car in which there was an innocent woman present (Madame

Yvonne de Gaulle Yvonne Charlotte Anne-Marie de Gaulle ( née Vendroux; 22 May 1900 – 8 November 1979) was the wife of Charles de Gaulle. The couple had three children: Philippe (b. 1921), Élisabeth (1924–2013), and Anne (1928–1948), who was born with ...

). # He had endangered civilians, namely the Fillon family, who had been travelling in a car near that carrying de Gaulle. # He had brought foreigners, specifically three

Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Urali ...

, into the plot. # During his trial, he claimed he intended not to kill de Gaulle, but rather to ''kidnap'' him. Asked how he intended to confine the President, Bastien-Thiry replied, "We would just have taken away his spectacles and braces." His defense lawyer was heard to mutter, "he has just signed his own death warrant," as it was much anticipated that while de Gaulle might have pardoned an assassin, he would not pardon an assassin who publicly mocked him. # Finally, and most serious in de Gaulle's eyes, while the other conspirators did the actual firing and had thus placed themselves in some danger, Bastien-Thiry had only directed events from afar, acting as a lookout for the gunmen.

Execution

Fearing a plot to free Bastien-Thiry, the authorities devised what was probably the biggest security operation in French judicial history in order to take him from his cell to the place of execution. 2000 policemen were posted along the route and 35 vehicles were used. There was indeed such a plot, headed by Jean Cantelaube, one of de Gaulle's former security officers, but it had been abandoned. Cantelaube was later identified as the intelligence agent who provided information to Bastien-Thiry's organization. The execution took place only one week after the trial, which was unusually swift. Moreover, an appeal was about to be heard by the Conseil d'État (French supreme public court) which might have overturned the sentence. Nonetheless, Bastien-Thiry, having refused a blindfold and clutching a

rosary The Rosary (; la, , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), also known as the Dominican Rosary, or simply the Rosary, refers to a set of prayers used primarily in the Catholic Church, and to the physical string of knots or b ...

, was executed by firing squad at

Fort d'Ivry Fort d'Ivry was built in the Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine between 1841 and 1845, as one of the forts in a ring of strong points surrounding Paris. The fort is about 1 kilometre outside the Thiers Wall, built by the same program in response to ...

on 11 March 1963. He was 35 years old. That very evening, President de Gaulle offered a dinner party to the presidents of the special courts, including the one who sent Bastien-Thiry to his death. About Bastien-Thiry, de Gaulle said "The French need martyrs ... They must choose them carefully. I could have given them one of those idiotic generals playing ball in

Tulle Tulle (; ) is a commune in central France. It is the third-largest town in the former region of Limousin and is the capital of the department of Corrèze, in the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Tulle is also the episcopal see of the Roman Cat ...

prison. I gave them Bastien-Thiry. They'll be able to make a martyr of him. He deserves it."Lacouture, 329

References

Sources

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bastien-Thiry, Jean French aerospace engineers École Polytechnique alumni Supaéro alumni Corps de l'armement 1927 births 1963 deaths 1962 crimes in France People from Lunéville Failed assassins Executed French people People executed by the French Fifth Republic People executed for attempted murder People executed by France by firing squad Executed people from Lorraine