Operation Charlotte Corday
The operation Charlotte Corday , entered with the posterity under the name of attack of the Petit-Clamart , is the code name of the mission of the Commando Delta of OAS taken along by the colonel Bastien-Thiry, aiming at assassinating the president Charles de Gaulle, the August 22nd 1962 with Clamart.
Charlotte Corday
See also: Charlotte Corday, Jean-Paul Marat
The operation was named according to a historical character of the 18th century, Charlotte Corday, which returns to the fight to be able taking place during the national Convention between the Girondins and the Jacobin S.
Of Gironde proscribed and fugitive ones had taken refuge in the Calvados. They were due to it of the assemblies and Charlotte Corday assisted several times with these meetings. At that time, the deputy Jacobin Jean-Paul Marat, representing for it tyranny, triumphed in Paris.
The July 11th 1793, Charlotte Corday went to the residence of Marat and assassinated it. Stopped, she was condemned by the revolutionary Tribunal and was carried out.
The parallel between the fight carried out in clandestinity by the OAS against president de Gaulle in Paris and that of the assassination of Marat indicates at the same time, the choice of the code name of the operation like its nature, an political assassination.
However, during the second part of the lawsuit and according to the council of his lawyers, the person in charge of the operation will deny any attempted murder to the favor of an attempt at removal for a judgment by the court of CNR.
The OAS against de Gaulle
See also: secret armed Organization, Charles de Gaulle
The various reasons and stakes for the operation Charlotte Corday as her repercussions (the Affaire Bastien-Thiry) can be included/understood only in the particular context of the events which preceded it, in particular a preceding attempted murder to Pont-sur-Seine the September 8th 1961. For various reasons, the operation envisaged in the tread was deferred in August 1962.
The July 5th 1962, the French Republic directed by Charles de Gaulle grants her independence to the establishing French Algérie continuation on the one hand with the Accords of Evian cease it fire, and on the other hand after the result of two Référendum S, organized in metropolis then in the French departments of Algeria, bearing on the self-determination of the Algérie. The Guerre of Algeria is completed by repatriation, the exodus for some, of a million colonists, the repatriates named then “French of Algeria”.
The Algerian people find the sovereignty of his territory after 132 years of French colonial administration and seven years of armed struggle by the means of the revolutionary militia of the Front of national release of Abd El-Aziz Bouteflika, ALN.
However in May 1958, with Algiers, the purpose of the takeover by force carried out jointly per the deputy of Algiers (poujadist) and officer parachutist of reserve Pierre Lagaillarde, the generals Raoul Salan (ordering French armed forces in Algeria), Edmond Jouhaud (air force), Gracious Jean (10th DP), the admiral Auboyneau (national marine) with the support of the the 10th division parachutist of the general Massu (victorious of decisive the Battle of Algiers the previous year) and the active complicity of combined Jacques Soustelle was of to allow the return to the capacity of the general in Charles de Gaulle retirement. Indeed, the partisans of the de Gaulle general misaient on a radical change of government policy based on the maintenance of the integrity of the republican territory, and thus of the continuation of the policy of “Pacification” in the French departments of Algeria carried out since 1954.
After having reassured a crowd “European” gaullist (Pied-noir and Jewish S Séfarade S) and “Moslem woman”, (Harki S and Moghazni S) fraternizing with Algiers the June 4th 1958, by a history “I included/understood you”, followed of univocal “Live French Algeria” with Mostaganem, Charles de Gaulle once become president of the Republic in 1959, however undertook to complete the policy of decolonization which it had started, then general, in 1943 with the Lebanon and the Syria during its rallying campaign of the colonies to the Free France for the release of the occupied metropolitan territory itself by the Nazi Germany of Hitler. Later, the October 2nd 1958, de Gaulle granted independence to the Guinea following the rejection of the news constitution by this one.
When the September 16th 1959, President de Gaulle employs for the first time the term of “Autodétermination” in connection with what is yet in the media only “the Algerian business”, certain voices of consternation started to be made hear among certain gaullists in Algeria and metropolis. The protestors interpreted the reversal of policy of the Head of the State, which they had contributed themselves to carry to the capacity, like a “treason”.
They is finally a few months later, the January 24th 1960, that more the extremists defenders of the maintenance of the integrity of the republican territory established a state of siege in the Algerian capital, then second “town of France” cash a million inhabitants “of European stock”, in what was going to become the Semaine of the barricades. Following declarations near the German newspaper perplexed Süddeutsche Zeitung leaving the Head of the State as for the honesty which granted to him the Massu general, from now on substitute of Salan to the head of the army of Algeria, this one was on the field transferred in metropolis. Later Massu will be affected at the zone of occupation of the FRG, with Baden-Baden, from where it will hold a historical role in May 1968. It is the reference of that which had allowed the “putsch gaullist” of 1958 which was used as element release in what the media described like “the events of Algiers”.
The commander Lagaillarde took the head of the operations of insurrection, the military command being ensured by the colonel Garde. Civilians solidarized themselves with the factious ones but, with surprised insurrectionists, the Crepin general replacing Massu, remained faithful to the duty of reserve of the army and did not fraternize with them. Insulated, Lagaillarde had to be constituted captive near its hierarchically superior at the end of one week of seat. It was sent in metropolis to answer it of its acts.
In 1960, benefitting from its setting in parole, Lagaillarde profited to escape and was exiled about it with Madrid living then per hour of the Franquisme. It is in February 1961, at the conclusion of an agreement with Raoul Salan, him as entered clandestinity, as the secret armed Organization created for itself, which later will take sometimes the name of “Organization of the secret army” or quite simply “Armed secret”.
Part of the population known as “of European stock”, the Pied-noir ones which, paradoxically, had not been consulted at the time of the first referendum, refused to leave its native soil, even ancestral for certain families. It joined the “maquis” of the OAS of which one of most known was that of the Ouarsenis.
In April 1961, following the failure of the Putsch of the generals aiming this time reversing de Gaulle, this one driving of the talks with a delegation of the freedom fighters, and at substituting for its authority a military Junta, the OAS geared down its clandestine operations.
These actions, of which most radical raised of the political assassination and terrorism, were carried out as well in the departments of French Algeria as in metropolis, the OAS laying out of a branch “Subway”, by the “commandos Delta”.
In Spain, ordering it Lagaillarde - always fugitive - was held with the colonels Charles Lacheroy (Co-creator of CIPCG with Salan) and Antoine Argoud, member-key of the Putsch of the generals in metropolis, with the head of the dissenting branch OAS-Madrid which was opposed to the Salan command by recommending a steering committee coordinating the operations since the foreigner. But Lagaillarde was challenged by the Guardia Civil and put under house arrest in October 1961.
The May 20th 1962 in Italy, Georges Bidault, old Foreign Minister of de Gaulle under GPRF then during the War of Indo-China, was elected by the executive committee, to which inter alia Jacques Soustelle him also minister under the GPRF and colonel Antoine Argoud belonged, president of the National council of Resistance (CNR) aiming at defending French Algeria. Bidault had already occupied this station following Jean Moulin in 1943.
It is by spirit of revenge, Algeria having become independent since the July 5th, day of the Massacre of Oran, and under the aegis of this CNR, that Bastien-Thiry will develop the operation Charlotte Corday in the month of August 1962.
Attack of the Petit-Clamart
See also: Commando Delta
Bastien-Thiry is assisted by another subway, Alain Bougrenet of Tocnaye, which regards de Gaulle as a “crypto-communist” as well as the Hungarian Lazlo Varga, Lajos Marton and Gyula Sari, them-also savagely anticommunist S. the remainder of the commando is composed of subways and of Pieds-Noirs, the latter intend to avenge the exactions made against their community, in particular the Fusillade of the street of Isly (80 died and 200 wounded civilians), as well as the loss of French Algeria.
The August 22nd 1962, around 8 p.m., two Citroen DS 19 standardized and escorted of two motorcyclists leave the Elys3ee palace for Colombey-the-Two-Churches. On second, de Gaulle board of return of a the Council of Ministers and France's First Lady; the colonel Alain de Boissieu, son-in-law and aide-de-camp of the president, as for him sat beside the driver.
Whereas the procession, travelling in direction of Vélizy-Villacoublay where waits the presidential helicopter, arrives at height of the roundabout of Clamart - locality of the Petit-Clamart -, the Bastien-Thiry commando, dissimulated in ambush in a Renault Estafette, opens fire on the presidential DS.
Ignoramus that the Pneumatique S of the presidential vehicle are the ball proof, the assassins draw with height from the wheels without success except for one two, Georges Watin, which sends a gust of CHECHMATE 49 to the back of the car where de Gaulle and his wife sat. Anticipating the attack In extremis , De Boissieu exclaims with de Gaulle to bend down what avoids to them being touched. On the 150 balls drawn by the commando, only the eight impacts of Watin will be identified on the DS. Carrying out the failure of the attack, Gerard Buisines tries éperonner the DS with Estafette while at its sides Alain Bougrenet of Tocnaye beyond the door mitrailler the DS tries when its weapon is stopped.
By a coincidence, the Head of the State and his wife survive the attempted murder and soon the terrorists will be stopped and submitted in front of an emergency court.
The assassins profited from a secret support within the Elysium, mainly that of the police chief Jacques Cantelaube. This last, general inspector of the police force and director of the safety of the president, resigned a little before the attack. It tested antipathy towards the man with which it was charged to ensure protection following his control of the Algerian businesses as from 1959. These complicities made it possible Bastien-Thiry to know the registration of the DS, the composition of the procession, as well as the various borrowed routes of which that which will be selected at the last time by security measure.
Interpellations, judgments and verdicts
See also: Capital punishment in France
A gigantic hunting for the man was launched at the evening of August 22nd to find the authors of the attack. At the end of fifteen days, about fifteen suspects were challenged, whereas some of them developed a new operation aiming de Gaulle.
The lawsuit was held at the height of Vincennes. At the time of the first meeting, nine marked appeared in front of the military Cour of justice on January 28th, 1963: Jean Bastien-Thiry, Alain Bougrenet of Tocnaye, Pascal Bertin, Gerard Buisines, Alphonse Constantin, Etienne Ducasse, Pierre-Henri Magade, Jacques Prévost and Lazlo Varga. Six others marked were judged by Contumace; the absent ones named Serge Bernier, Louis de Condé, Lajos Marton, Jean-Marie Naudin, Gyula Sari and Georges Watin.
March 4th at the conclusion of the instruction with load against the Bastien-Thiry officer, the military Court of justice considered to be it guilty to have planned and have orchestrated the operation Charlotte Corday.
Judged as simple executants, the gunners were condemned to various sorrows of reclusion but profited in 1968 of the Presidential pardon. Particular cases, Bougrenet of Tocnaye and Bertin were condemned to death, and released Sari. Prévost testified with discharge against Bertin and required of the jury so that his sorrow is commuted to him calling upon a higher responsibility, the jury granted to him. They also profited them from the presidential pardon.
Condemned to the capital punishment with the reasons for plot against the state security and attempted murder against the president of the Republic, the fact to have threatened the life of a woman having carried to load as causes worsening with the eyes of de Gaulle, the Bastien-Thiry lieutenant-colonel had passed by the weapons by a military group, ordered De facto by the chief of the executive, at the height of Ivry on March 11th, 1963 at dawn. 35 years old, it left with its execution a widow and three orphan.
Looked after for depression, the Bastien-Thiry lieutenant-colonel however profited from extenuating circumstances being able to moderate his judgment, but it did not wish to plead with discharge in this direction accepting its punishment.
Bastien-Thiry business
See also: , Declaration of the colonel Bastien-Thiry
The February 2nd 1963, succeeding the short declarations of its co-defendants present at the time of the lawsuit, the principal accused of the operation Charlotte Corday, Jean Bastien-Thiry, pled in an interminable speech the self-defense with discharge for him and its “comrades” and with load against the “men of being able” and in particular against most powerful among them, that which its lawyer and future candidate with the presidency Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour called the “Prince”.
Constituent of “the Bastien-Thiry business”, that Rene Wittmann published in a confidential pulling the February 20th 1963 and whose Serp published a series of 33 turns the same year, started with its words: (sound recording)
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“the action of which we answer today in front of you presents an exceptional character and we ask you to believe that only reasons for an also exceptional nature could determine us to undertake it. We are neither of the fascistic , nor of factious but of the French national, French of stock or French of heart. In fact misfortunes of the fatherland led us on these benches. ”
For what it represents and the nature of the declaration of Bastien-Thiry, this lawsuit will be lived at the time like that of the OAS and to a certain extent, that of the war of Algeria. It inspired many works of the Années 1960 at our days, which they are criticisms of the Capital punishment, French population being then mainly Catholique, of testimonys, the family of condemned work since for its Réhabilitation through the “Bastien-Thiry circle”, or of counter-enquiries; in Bastien-Thiry: Until the end of French Algeria , Jean-Pax Méfret, international reporter, questions “How a man, equipped with deep catholic convictions and of a higher cultural luggage, could arrive from there there? ”.
In the national press the reactions to “the Bastien-Thiry business”, which leads at the same time on the last political execution in France and to the shot last, were not made wait. The remarkable one of the situation consists of three points: the virulence of the criticism of Bastien-Thiry with regard to the Algerian policy adopted by de Gaulle, the fact that condemned were finally pardoned except for one only, expeditious character of the sentence. Thus the shortly after the execution, in the Express train , Jean Daniel wrote “In fact, the humanity of the sovereign ends up overpowering to his partisans”, while in the Duck connected , under the feather of Jerome Gauthier, one could read “It is the shame which shaves the walls. A certain justice also, seems it…” followed by “the Bastien-Thiry lieutenant-colonel died, I do not say cried, but not felt sorry for by a very great number of French, even among those most savagely hostile with its cause”.