Philippe Pétain's coffin was stolen from the Port-Joinville cemetery on the

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

Atlantic coast

Île d'Yeu Ile or ILE may refer to: Ile * Ile, a Puerto Rican singer * Ile District (disambiguation), multiple places * Ilé-Ifẹ̀, an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria * Interlingue (ISO 639:ile), a planned language * Isoleucine, an amino ...

on the night of February 18–19, 1973. The operation, carried out by a commando of six men close to the

extreme right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...

, was intended to transfer the Marshal's remains to the ossuary at Douaumont, near

Verdun Verdun ( , ; ; ; official name before 1970: Verdun-sur-Meuse) is a city in the Meuse (department), Meuse departments of France, department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department. In 843, the Treaty of V ...

, as a sort of "rehabilitation" for

Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (, ), was a French marshal who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the Collaboration with Nazi Ger ...

's supporters. The "mastermind" of the operation was far-right lawyer and politician

Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour (; 12 October 1907 – 29 September 1989) was a French lawyer and Far-right politics, far-right politician. Elected to the National Assembly (France), National Assembly in 1936, he initially collaborated with the Vichy ...

. One of his close friends, Hubert Massol, was put in charge of the project, heading a team he formed with five other people. A number of incidents led to the failure of the operation, with the coffin being found three days later in the Paris suburbs, and the main protagonists arrested. The coffin was reburied in the Port-Joinville cemetery on February 22. For three days, the case made the headlines in the French media and mobilized the authorities and police.

Context

On August 15, 1945, at the end of his trial, Marshal

was sentenced to death and '' indignité nationale''.

General de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free France, Free French Forces against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Re ...

commuted his sentence to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

two days later. Pétain was first interned at

Fort du Portalet The Fort du Portalet is a fort in the Aspe Valley in Bearn, French Pyrenees, built from 1842 to 1870. The fort, built by order of Louis Philippe I, guards the border of the Pyrenees and protects access to the Col du Somport. Fort du Portale ...

in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...

, then transferred on November 16, 1945 to Fort de la Citadelle in the commune of L'Île-d'Yeu. On June 29, 1951, in view of his poor health, he was placed under house arrest in Paul Luco's private home (now an annex of the Nantes military hospital) in Port-Joinville, the commune's main town. He died there a month later, on July 23, 1951, and was buried the following day in the commune's cemetery, opposite the line of white sailors' graves. In 1938, in his will, Pétain expressed his wish to be buried in

. After his death, the

Association for the Defence of the Memory of Marshal Pétain The Association for the Defence of the Memory of Marshal Pétain (''Association pour défendre la mémoire du maréchal Pétain'' or ''ADMP'') is a French association set up on 6 November 1951 under the patronage of general Maxime Weygand, its hon ...

(ADMP) regularly called for his remains to be transferred to Verdun, in the name of "national reconciliation". The ADMP organized a petition in May 1954, supported by numerous

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in an job, occupation or Craft, field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in the military, armed forces. A topic o ...

s' associations, which attracted almost 70,000 signatures. This request was systematically refused by successive French governments. According to

Henry Rousso Henry Rousso (born 23 November 1954) is an Egyptian-born France, French historian specializing in World War II France. Early life Henry Rousso was born on 23 November 1954 in Cairo, Egypt, to a Egyptian jewish, Jewish family. Forced out of Egypt u ...

's analysis, this request for the remains to be translated aims to "make people forget the Marshal of 1940 in favor of the General of 1916, to use the memory of the veterans of the Great War, for whom Pétain remained the man who said "We'll get them", for the benefit of an ideology".

The operation

went to île d'Yeu in January 1973 to do some initial scouting,. in particular to find out about the constraints of the " La Vendée"

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

timetable, linked to tide times. He set up the operation with Hubert Massol, one of his deputies at the Alliance républicaine pour les libertés et le progrès (ARLP), the political party he headed. Massol recruited a team of four people, who were joined by a funeral craftsman from the Thiais cemetery in Paris, an acquaintance of Tixier-Vignancour's wife, who was to help open and close the grave. The date chosen was the night of February 18 to 19, a few weeks before the March legislative elections, to maximize the impact of the operation and put pressure on the powers that be to relocate Pétain's remains. Tixier-Vignancour and Massol also wanted the operation to take place before February 21, the anniversary of the start of the

Battle of Verdun The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...

On the previous Friday, February 16, an accomplice, Solange Boche, a shopkeeper from

Essonne Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes. and Armand Garau, one of the commando members posing as her husband, travelled to the island in a rented van, a

Renault Estafette The Renault Estafette is a light commercial front-wheel drive van produced by the French automaker Renault. Initially used the water-cooled Renault Ventoux engine, then later the Cléon-Fonte engine in a range of body styles. It was replaced ...

registered in

Hauts-de-Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a department in the Île-de-France region of France. It covers Paris's western inner suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the east, Val-d'Oise to the north, Yvelines to the west and ...

, on the ferry that links the island with the mainland. The cover for this trip was the sale of clothes at the market held in Port-Joinville over the weekend. On Sunday, the other five members arrived on the island by ferry as mere passengers, leaving their vehicles in the port of Fromentine, on the Vendée coast, while the shopkeeper discreetly returned to the mainland without the van, but accompanied by Pierre Garau. Once on the mainland, Garau dropped her off at the train station before returning to the island. The commando stayed at the Hôtel des Voyageurs, run by Gilles Noleau, a Pétainist who Tixier-Vignancour had met on his visit in January. It was in this hotel that Annie Pétain was staying while her husband was in prison, as the Marshal's wife had daily visiting rights. A few hours after their arrival, at around 2 a.m. on the night of Sunday 18th to Monday 19th, the six men led by Hubert Massol drove the Renault Estafette into the Port-Joinville cemetery. In barely half an hour, they opened Marshal Pétain's grave and stole the coffin containing his corpse. The tombstone was put back in place, the joints redone and the surrounding area raked to remove the many footprints and cement splinters left by the opening of the grave. The coffin, surprisingly well preserved after more than twenty years, was loaded into the estafette, which was pushed out of the cemetery, engine off, to avoid making any noise (the Gendarmerie is right next door, and some of its windows overlook the graves). The team returned to the hotel, where they drank champagne with the manager. An hour later, at 4 a.m., they embarked with the van on the ferry,. which left the port at high tide half an hour later. Arriving at the port of Fromentine, some of the commando members climbed into the car they had left the day before to board the ferry, and the two vehicles set off. That same day, at around 9 a.m., municipal employee Jean Taraud made his daily rounds and visited Marshal Pétain's grave to check on its condition after the weekend's visits.A soccer match with a team from the continent took place at the weekend, and Jean Taraud knew that some of the players took the opportunity to visit the marshal's grave He noticed that the area around the grave was surprisingly clean, but above all that the joints of the tombstone were fresh. He immediately notified the gendarmes. They alerted the Vendée prefect and the

public prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible ...

, who in turn informed the Minister of the Interior,

Raymond Marcellin Raymond Marcellin (; 19 August 1914 in Sézanne, Marne – 8 September 2004) was a French politician. Biography The son of a banker, he studied law at the University of Strasbourg and the University of Paris. He worked as a lawyer for three ...

. Accompanied by an examining magistrate from Sables-d'Olonne, the prefect and the public prosecutor set off for Ile d'Yeu (as the next ferry was too late due to the tide, a helicopter was made available). Once there, they had the marshal's tomb opened: the flight was then established. One of the first leads was that a team from

Franco's Spain Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of History of Spain, Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . ...

had boarded a ship to recover the coffin. In fact, Michel Dumas had used Spanish newspapers, found by chance in the van, to fill in the hole made by the percussion of the crowbar when opening the coffin, for lack of sufficient cement. This seemed a credible lead to investigators, given that Spain was still home to former French collaborators such as

Louis Darquier de Pellepoix Louis Darquier (19 December 1897 – 29 August 1980), better known under his assumed name Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, was Commissioner-General for Jewish Affairs under the Vichy Régime. Biography A veteran of World War I, Darquier had been a ...

and former Belgian fascist leader

Léon Degrelle Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle (; 15 June 1906 – 31 March 1994) was a Belgian Walloon politician and Nazi collaborator. He rose to prominence in Belgium in the 1930s as the leader of the Rexist Party (Rex). During the German occupatio ...

, who had once promised to "go and liberate Marshal Pétain". During the morning, the commando stopped off near Challans in the Vendée, at the Château de la Vérie belonging to

François Boux de Casson François Boux de Casson (24 February 1908 - 31 January 1981) was a French aristocrat, landowner and right-wing politician. He served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1936 to 1940, representing Les Sables-d'Olonne in the Vendée. Early ...

(deputy for the Vendée between the wars, François Boux de Casson was a departmental delegate for information under the

Vichy regime Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the defeat against ...

). According to Massol, it was agreed with him that the commando could stop off there to rest. According to journalist

Jacques Derogy Jacques Derogy (1925–1997) was a French investigative journalist. Early life Jacques Derogy was born on July 24, 1925, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine ''département'', near Paris. His father, Henri Weitzmann, was a journalist. During Worl ...

, the commando was also to transfer the coffin to another vehicle. However, no one was there, and after waiting for three hours, the commando set off again. At midday, the six men stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant, where they learned over the radio that the coffin abduction had been discovered. In less than ten hours, they were aware of the misdeed. They decided to abandon their original destination,

, as too risky, and headed for

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, which they reached that afternoon. After symbolically taking the coffin down the

Avenue des Champs-Élysées Avenue or Avenues may refer to: Roads * Avenue (landscape), traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees, in the shifted sense a tree line itself, or some of boulevards (also without trees) * Avenue Road, Bangalore * Avenue Road, Lo ...

, the commando split up. The van was parked on

boulevard Raspail The Boulevard Raspail () is a boulevard of Paris, in France. Its orientation is north–south, and joins boulevard Saint-Germain with place Denfert-Rochereau whilst traversing 7th, 6th and 14th arrondissements. The boulevard intersects maj ...

and Hubert Massol, accompanied by Michel Dumas, went to see Tixier-Vignancour, noting that his home was already under police surveillance. The coffin was then transferred to another vehicle in Armand Garau's garage, and Massol went alone to hide the coffin in a cubicle at 30, avenue Gabriel-Péri, near Saint-Ouen in the Paris suburbs.

Arrest of the commando and location of the coffin

The affair made the headlines in the press and on radio and television. Not wanting this sensitive affair to pollute the election campaign, the authorities pulled out all the stops to resolve it as quickly as possible. The Minister of the Interior, campaigning in his Morbihan constituency, was rushed back to Paris. Border surveillance was stepped up. Fearing that the coffin might be secretly buried in Verdun, gendarmerie roadblocks were set up in the region and the Douaumont necropolis was monitored.At the Douaumont military cemetery, gendarmes checked the identity of anyone approaching General Anselin's grave (mainly journalists), Pétain having declared during a visit in 1934 that he wished to be buried there. General Anselin's remains were transferred there in 1948 from a small temporary cemetery near Douaumont, where he had been buried in 1916. In Paris, police disguised as tourists even guarded the

tomb of the Unknown Soldier A Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is a monument dedicated to the services of an unknown soldier and the common memories of all soldiers killed in war. Such tombs are located in many nations and are usually high-profile na ...

under the

Arc de Triomphe The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, often called simply the Arc de Triomphe, is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Plac ...

. The media put forward various hypotheses: provocation by the extreme left or an operation by Pétain nostalgics, but in extreme right-wing circles, the rumor was that it was a Tixier-Vignancour coup. As the investigation progressed, police were able to identify the van on the basis of a list of vehicles that had taken the ferry. It had been rented in

Puteaux Puteaux () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department, from the centre of Paris. La Défense, Paris's business district hosting the tallest buildings in the metropolitan ...

, Hauts-de-Seine, with a stolen license, but on the ferry, it had taken the place reserved for another van, registered in Essonne. The police then managed to trace the car back to the shopkeeper, who was arrested at her home in Étréchy. When questioned, she finally admitted that she had indeed gone to the island to sell clothes with a fairground friend, Armand Garau. Her van had broken down, so Garau's son, Pierre Garau, rented one for them, but she said she didn't know the names of the other members of the commando. Pierre Garau was located and arrested by the police, but his father had fled. The rental van was found in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, at the corner of avenue du Général-Mangin and avenue de Lamballe, but it only contained equipment for selling at markets. The funeral craftsman was also arrested.

Jacques Isorni Jacques Isorni (1911–1995) was a French lawyer and memoirist. He came to prominence for his role as defending counsel in a number of cases involving prominent figures on the far right as well as for his own involvement in right wing politics. E ...

, Pétain's lawyer at his trial, suspected it was a plot by his "rival"

. He visited him at the Paris courthouse and, in a heated discussion, tried to convince him to put a stop to the operation. In the end, they agreed on an honorable way out: to obtain a temporary burial at

Les Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and an old soldi ...

, while the President of the Republic,

Georges Pompidou Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou ( ; ; 5 July 19112 April 1974) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1969 until his death in 1974. He previously served as Prime Minister of France under President Charles de Gaulle from 19 ...

, decided on a burial at Douaumont. Late afternoon on Wednesday February 21, Hubert Massol discreetly met up with Tixier-Vignancour at the courthouse. Knowing they were being watched, they decided to get it over with: Massol would denounce himself, but without implicating Tixer-Vignancour, who would defend him at his trial and use the occasion to reopen the Marshal's case. Massol immediately called journalists to an impromptu press conference at the Café Cristal on

Avenue de la Grande-Armée Avenue or Avenues may refer to: Roads * Avenue (landscape), traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees, in the shifted sense a tree line itself, or some of boulevards (also without trees) * Avenue Road, Bangalore * Avenue Road, Lo ...

for 6 p.m., during which he indicated that he was prepared to reveal the whereabouts of the coffin if he received a written undertaking from the President of the Republic that the coffin would be deposited at Les Invalides pending its transfer to Douaumont. Shortly afterwards, the police burst into the café and arrested Massol. After being questioned, he finally agreed to tell the police the address of the cubicle if he was accompanied by journalists and photographers, which the Minister of the Interior, who had been consulted, agreed to do. The coffin was found in Saint-Ouen shortly after midnight on Thursday February 22, just three days after his abduction.

Re-burial on Île d'Yeu

The coffin was immediately taken by ambulance to the church of the Val-de-Grâce military hospital, where it was placed in an

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

, covered with the tricolor flag and watched over overnight by some twenty mobile guards. In the morning, at 8:30 a.m., in the presence of the Paris Police Prefect, he was flown to the Villacoublay air base and taken by military aircraft and then by

Puma helicopter Puma or PUMA may refer to: Animals * ''Puma'' (genus), a genus in the family Felidae ** Puma (species) or cougar, a large cat Businesses and organisations * Puma (brand), a multinational shoe and sportswear company * Puma Energy, a mid- and ...

to the

Ile d'Yeu Ile or ILE may refer to: Ile * Ile, a Puerto Rican singer * Ile District (disambiguation), multiple places * Ilé-Ifẹ̀, an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria * Interlingue (ISO 639:ile), a planned language * Isoleucine, an amino a ...

. After a brief religious ceremony at the Notre-Dame-du-Port church in Port-Joinville, the coffin was placed back in its grave in the presence of the Vendée prefect, the public prosecutor, the examining magistrate, veterans and a crowd of curious onlookers and journalists. French President

sent flowers, which were laid on the grave during the re-interment..

Aftermath

During those few days, the affair took on the magnitude of an affair of state, contrasting with the apparent amateurism of the operation. The few members of the commando group arrested were briefly incarcerated in

La Santé prison La Santé Prison (named after its location on the Rue de la Santé) ( or ) is a prison operated by the French Prison Service of the Ministry of Justice (France), Ministry of Justice located in the east of the Montparnasse district of the 14th arr ...

. The examining magistrate Louis Calvet to whom they were presented in Sables-d'Olonne on February 24 charged them, along with

, but released them the same day.

, who had not been implicated by the members of the commando and for lack of evidence, was not questioned (he even claimed in a subsequent television interview that he could never have imagined that Hubert Massol was involved in the affair). The members of the commando were never brought to trial. In fact, no investigation or trial took place in the months that followed. According to historian Jean-Yves Le Naour, neither the judiciary nor the government wanted a trial that risked becoming political and giving a platform to Tixier-Vignancour. A year later,

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, ; ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as simply Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. After serving as Ministry of the Economy ...

declared a collective presidential amnesty for political offenses, following his election as President of France in May 1974. In July 1975, the examining magistrate dismissed the case under this amnesty.

The protagonists

The "commando" who removed the coffin was made up of six people: * Hubert Massol (b. 1937), who recruited and led the commando. As a young man, he spent almost three years fighting in

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

, before embarking on a career in advertising on his return. At the same time, he got involved in politics, joining the Alliance républicaine pour les libertés et le progrès (ARLP), Tixier-Vignancour's party, of which he became one of the main collaborators, and for which he had already done a few stints (before the Yeu operation, he was under investigation for assault and battery against a former ARLP leader, who had split and set up his own party). Massol indicated that he had chosen Tixier-Vignancour's party rather than another nationalist party because its program included the transfer of Pétain's remains to Douaumont. Chosen as a candidate for the ARLP in the March 1973 legislative elections for the 29th district of Paris in the 19th arrondissement, he withdrew following the affair. He then chaired the Association nationale Pétain-Verdun (until 1982),. and was active in the

National Rally The National Rally (, , RN), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018 (, , FN), is a French far-right politics, far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and French nationalism, nationalist. It is the single largest Nat ...

, then the

National Republican Movement The National Republican Movement (''Mouvement national républicain'' or MNR) is a French nationalist political party, created by Bruno Mégret with former Club de l'Horloge members Yvan Blot (also a member of GRECE) and Jean-Yves Le Gallou, ...

(MNR). He was a candidate in the legislative elections in Hauts-de-Seine, in the cantonal elections in the canton of Asnières-sur-Seine-Nord, and was elected municipal councillor of

Asnières-sur-Seine Asnières-sur-Seine () is a Communes of France, commune in the Hauts-de-Seine Departments of France, department and Île-de-France Regions of France, region of north-central France. It lies on the left bank of the river Seine, some eight kilometr ...

. Between 2009 and 2020, he was president of the

(ADMP); * a former Hungarian

legionnaire The French Foreign Legion (, also known simply as , "the Legion") is a corps of the French Army created to allow List of militaries that recruit foreigners, foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831 and today consis ...

; * a Polish anti-communist and refugee in France, also a former legionnaire; * Pierre Garau, 40, a former paratrooper; * Armand Garau, 61 or 65 years old, the father of the previous owner, a former soldier and Parisian mechanic. He drove the van. On the run after the arrest of his son and other members of the commando, he appeared a few days later before the examining magistrate in Les Sables-d'Olonne; * Michel Dumas (1932-2015), a professional marble mason, was responsible for opening and closing the tomb. Tixier-Vignancour is said to have known him through his wife, who regularly visited the grave of her housekeeper buried in the Parisian cemetery of Thiais, and became friends with him. On the way to Paris, in the van, he engraved his initials "MD" on the coffin with his

laguiole Laguiole (; ''La Guiòla'' in Languedocien) is a commune in the southern French department of Aveyron. It is known for its Laguiole cheese, which has an ''Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée'' (label of guaranteed origin), and as the birthp ...

. During his interrogation at the Quai des Orfèvres, the police confounded him by showing him one of the four postcards he had sent from the Ile d'Yeu. In 2004, he published ''La Permission du maréchal: trois jours en maraude avec le cercueil de Pétain'', a book recounting the operation.The title of Michel Dumas's book, ''La Permission du maréchal'', was inspired by a letter Tixier-Vignancour wrote to him after the affair, in which he wrote: You offered the conqueror of Verdun a three-day leave. Other people were also involved in the operation: *

(1907-1989), renowned lawyer and figurehead of the French far right, the mastermind of the operation, but not prosecuted for lack of evidence; * Gilles Noleau, owner of the Hôtel des Voyageurs in Port-Joinville. He welcomed the members of the commando team on the Sunday afternoon before the operation (showing them around the small private museum created in his hotel in honor of the Marshal) and again a few hours after the operation, before they boarded the ferry again at 4 a.m.; * Solange Boche, 38, the shopkeeper from the Paris suburbs who used her alibi to bring a van to the island, was the first to be arrested; *

(1908-1981), deputy mayor of Challans and Conservative deputy for Vendée between the wars, he was departmental delegate for information under the Vichy regime. The Château de la Vérie, near Challans, belonged to his family since the early 19th century. According to Hubert Massol, Boux de Casson agreed to let the commando make a stopover at his château, enthusiastically declaring that "his château was historic because it had welcomed Richelieu, and that it would be doubly historic by welcoming Pétain and that he was very honored by it". He reportedly took fright and left for Paris by train the day before, without informing Massol. For his part, Boux de Casson denied ever having been aware of the operation. In all, six people were charged with grave robbery: Hubert Massol, Pierre and Armand Garau, Michel Dumas, Solange Boche and François Boux de Casson. The main judicial, police and administrative figures in charge of the case were: * Louis Calvet,

examining magistrate An examining magistrate is a judge in an inquisitorial system of law who carries out pre- trial investigations into allegations of crime and in some cases makes a recommendation for prosecution. Also known as an investigating magistrate, inquisit ...

in Sables-d'Olonne; * Roger Hauret (1919-2015),

in Les Sables-d'Olonne; in 1980, while public prosecutor in Angoulême, he was in charge of the judicial investigation into the kidnapping of industrialist Michel Maury-Laribière; * Roger Ninin (1919-2004), Prefect of Vendée. Appointed

Prefect of Ain The Prefect of Ain is the highest state representative in the department of Ain on the East border of France. Its seat is in Bourg-en-Bresse. The office was created in 1800 under Napoléon Bonaparte, then First Consul of the French First Repub ...

department in 1975,Décret du 21 avril 1975 portant nomination du préfet de l'Ain
JORF No. 94 du 22 avril 1975, in

Légifrance Légifrance () is the official website of the French government for the publication of legislation, regulations, and legal information. It was established by decree in 2002. Access to the site is free. Virtually complete, it presents or refers to ...

. (in French) then préfet hors cadre in 1979; * Jacques Lenoir (1918-2008), Prefect of the Paris Police. A former member of the Resistance and director of the Renseignements Généraux, he later became director of the Police Nationale; * Roger Poiblanc (1921-2011), police commissioner at 36, quai des Orfèvres, in charge of the Paris investigation. He had already been involved in or in charge of several famous criminal cases, including the Petit-Clamart attack on

General De Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free France, Free French Forces against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Re ...

(1962), the arrest of the murderer Lucien Léger (1964) and the kidnapping of

Ben Barka Mehdi Ben Barka (; 1920 – disappeared 29 October 1965) was a Moroccan nationalist, Arab socialist, politician, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP) and secretary of the Tricontinental C ...

(1965). In 1976, he was put in charge of the investigation into the assassination of Prince

Jean de Broglie Prince Jean Marie François Ferdinand de Broglie (1921–1976) was a French politician who held numerous ministerial positions in various governments between 1962 and 1967 during the presidency of Charles de Gaulle and served in the National Asse ...

and, in 1978, the kidnapping of Baron Empain.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * : a comic strip freely inspired by the case. * * {{Portal bar, 1970s, France Far-right politics in France Philippe Pétain February 1973 in Europe 1973 crimes in France Pétain's coffin 1973 in politics History of Vendée