On the evening of September 8, 1961, a group of five cars was racing from Paris to Colombey-les-Eglise. At the wheel of the Citroen DS car was the driver of the national gendarmerie Francis Maru, and in the cabin - the President of France, General Charles de Gaulle, his wife Yvonne and the presidential adjutant Colonel Tessier. At about 21:35 in the Pont-sur-Seine district, the head of state's car drove past an unremarkable pile of sand. And at that moment a powerful explosion thundered. Later, Colonel Tessier said that the flame from the explosion rose to the very tops of the trees growing along the side of the road. Driver Francis Maru was racing at full speed, trying to squeeze all its capabilities out of the presidential car. Only a few kilometers from the scene of the assassination attempt, Maru was stopped by a limousine. Charles de Gaulle and his wife moved to another car and continued on their way …
Subsequently, it turned out that the explosive device prepared for the President of France consisted of 40 kg of plastid and nitrocellulose, 20 liters of oil, gasoline and soap flakes. It was only by a happy coincidence that the device failed to work in full, and de Gaulle, his wife and companions remained alive.
At the time of the events described, General Charles de Gaulle had already served as President of the French Republic for three years. A legendary personality for France, de Gaulle enjoyed great respect among the people, but during the period from 1958 to 1961 he managed to lose the sympathy of a significant part of his immediate support - the French military, who were dissatisfied with the French policy in Algeria. For nearly 130 years prior to the assassination attempt on de Gaulle, Algeria was a colony of France - one of its most important African possessions.
Once a citadel of Mediterranean corsairs who attacked the coastal cities of southern France, Italy, Spain, and the merchant ships of European companies, Algeria eventually "questioned" French retaliation. In 1830, French troops invaded the country, which, despite the stubborn resistance of the Algerians, managed to quickly establish control over the key Algerian cities and ports. In 1834, France officially announced the annexation of Algeria. Since that time, Paris has invested heavily in the development of its largest and most important colony in the Maghreb.
During the second half of the 19th and especially the beginning of the 20th centuries. a huge number of French colonists moved to Algeria. Many French peasants, suffering from a shortage of free land in France itself, began life anew, crossing the Mediterranean Sea and settling in the coastal territories of Algeria. The climate on the coast was quite conducive to the development of agriculture. Ultimately, up to 40% of the cultivated land in Algeria ended up in the hands of French settlers, and the very number of the colonists or "blackfoots" exceeded a million people. At the same time, relations between the Algerians and the French were generally neutral - the French colonists cultivated the lands of Algeria, and the Algerian Zouaves and Spaghs served in the French colonial troops and fought in almost all the wars waged by France.
This continued until the 1920s - 1940s, when supporters of national independence became more active in Algeria. The Second World War also played a role, giving a colossal impetus to anti-colonial movements around the world. Algeria is no exception. On May 8, 1945, right on the day of the surrender of Nazi Germany, a mass demonstration of supporters of independence took place in the city of Setif, during which a policeman shot and killed a young Algerian. In response, a popular uprising began, accompanied by pogroms in French and Jewish quarters. The French army and police suppressed the uprising very harshly, from 10 thousand (according to the estimates of the French lawyer Jacques Verger) to 45 thousand (according to the estimates of the US Embassy) Algerians died.
For some time the colony was pacified, but, as it turned out, the supporters of independence were only gathering their strength. On November 1, 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) was created, which on the same day turned to armed struggle against French government troops and institutions. The victims of FLN attacks were military personnel, police patrols and small areas, French colonists, as well as Algerians themselves who collaborated with the French or were suspected of such cooperation. Egypt, where Arab nationalists headed by Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power, soon began to provide much assistance to the FLN.
In turn, the French concentrated huge forces in Algeria - by 1956 a third of the entire French army was in the colony - more than 400 thousand people. Against the rebels and the population supporting them, they acted with very tough methods. The paratroopers and units of the Foreign Legion, who had good training and high mobility, played a key role in suppressing the insurgents.
However, in the metropolis itself, not all forces approved of the tough measures of the army in Algeria. Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlen was going to start peace negotiations with the FLN, which forced the army generals to issue an ultimatum - either a military coup, or the change of head of government to Charles de Gaulle. At that time, it seemed to ordinary Frenchmen, officers of the armed forces, and the highest generals that de Gaulle, a national hero and resolute politician, would not surrender the French positions in Algeria.
On June 1, 1958, de Gaulle became Prime Minister of France, and on January 8, 1959, he was elected President of the country. However, the general did not live up to the expectations placed on him by the French colonists and far-right leaders. Already on September 16, 1959, Charles de Gaulle made a speech in which he recognized the right of the Algerian people to self-determination. For the French military elite, especially those who fought in Algeria, these words of the head of state were a real shock. Moreover, by the end of 1959, the French army, operating in Algeria under the command of General Maurice Challe, achieved impressive successes and practically suppressed the resistance of the FLN units. But de Gaulle's position was adamant.
On January 8, 1961, a referendum on independence was held in Algeria, in which 75% of the participants voted for it. The French far-right responded immediately - in February 1961, the Secret Armed Organization (OAS - Organization de l'armée secrète) was created in Madrid, whose goal was to prevent the granting of independence to Algeria. OAS members acted on behalf of more than a million French columns and several million Algerians who collaborated with the French authorities and served in the army or police.
The organization was led by student leader Pierre Lagayard and Army General Raoul Salan. One of de Gaulle's closest associates in the Resistance Movement, 62-year-old General Salan has come a long way - he participated in the First World War, served in the colonial troops in West Africa, headed the military intelligence department of the Ministry of Colonies, and commanded 6 the Senegalese Regiment and the 9th Colonial Division, which fought in Europe, then commanded the colonial troops in Tonkin, was the commander-in-chief of the French troops in Indochina and Algeria. This most experienced general, who went through many wars, believed that Algeria should remain French in the future.
On the night of April 21-22, 1961, French troops loyal to the OAS, led by Generals Salan, Jouhaux, Challe and Zeller, attempted a coup in French Algeria, taking control of the cities of Oran and Constantine. However, the coup was suppressed, Jouhaux and Salan went into hiding, and Schall and Zeller were arrested. A military tribunal sentenced Salan to death in absentia. Members of the OAS, in turn, began preparations for the assassination attempt on General de Gaulle. At the same time, there were many assassinations and assassinations of government officials and police officers loyal to de Gaulle.
The direct organizer of the assassination attempt in Pont-sur-Seine was Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (1927-1963). A hereditary officer, the son of an artillery lieutenant colonel who personally knew de Gaulle, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was educated at the SUPAERO National School of Space and Aeronautics in Toulouse and entered service in the French Air Force, where he dealt with aviation weapons and developed air-to-air missiles. air.
Until 1959, Bastien-Thiry, in the tradition of the family, supported Charles de Gaulle, but when the latter began negotiations with the FLN and expressed his readiness to grant independence to Algeria, Bastien-Thiry became disillusioned with the president. At the same time, the lieutenant colonel did not join the OAS. Bastien-Thiry was convinced that after the loss of Algeria, France would finally lose all of Africa, and the newly independent countries would find themselves under the influence of communism and the USSR. A staunch Catholic, Bastien-Thiry did not immediately decide to organize a terrorist attack against the president. He even tried to find a justification for the attempt on the "tyrant" in the writings of the church fathers.
As soon as an explosion occurred along the route of the presidential motorcade, the special services immediately began to search for its organizers. Within a few hours after the assassination attempt, five people were arrested - Henri Manoury, Armand Belvizy, Bernard Barans, Jean-Marc Rouviere, Martial de Villemandy, and a month later - the sixth participant in the assassination attempt, Dominique Caban de la Prade. All those arrested worked in the car insurance industry.
Henri Manuri admitted himself to be the organizer of the assassination attempt, and Dominique de la Prade was the direct perpetrator - it was he who activated the detonator when the presidential car approached. Soon Dominique de la Prade managed to escape to Belgium. He was arrested in a neighboring country only in December 1961, and extradited to France in March 1964. It is interesting that "hot on the trail" to reveal the involvement of Lieutenant Colonel Bastien-Thiry in organizing the assassination attempt in Pont-sur-Seine, they could not and the officer remained free, not abandoning the idea of ridding France and the French from Charles de Gaulle.
On August 28, 1962, in the city of Trois, in the department of Aub, a trial began against the participants in the assassination attempt, as a result of which they all received various terms of imprisonment - from ten years to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, on July 5, 1962, the political independence of Algeria was proclaimed. Thus, Charles de Gaulle finally became the worst enemy of the French nation in the eyes of right-wing radicals and the military.
Lieutenant Colonel Bastien-Thiry began to develop Operation Charlotte Corday - as the OAS members called the next plan to eliminate the French president. On August 22, 1962, a motorcade of President Charles de Gaulle of two Citroen DS cars was passing in the area of Clamart, accompanied by two police motorcyclists. In the first car were de Gaulle himself, his wife Yvonne, the driver Francis Maru and the adjutant Colonel Allen de Boissieu. In the second car, police foreman Rene Casselon was driving, police commissioner Henri Puissant was next to the driver, and in the cabin was the bodyguard of the President Henri Jouder and military doctor Jean-Denis Dego.
On the way, the motorcade was awaited by a group of "Delta" OAS of 12 people armed with automatic weapons. The group included former and active members of the French army and the Foreign Legion, mainly paratroopers. They were all young people between the ages of 20 and 37. In one of the cars, Lieutenant Colonel Bastien-Thiry himself hid, who was supposed to signal the submachine gunners about the approach of the presidential motorcade. As soon as de Gaulle's cars approached the ambush site, the conspirators opened fire. However, President Marru's driver, a top-class pro, drove the president's car out of the gunfire at full speed, just like during the last assassination attempt. An attempt by one of the conspirators Gerard Buizin to ram the presidential Citroen in his minibus also failed.
Fifteen suspects were soon arrested for organizing the assassination attempt on the president. Ordinary members of Operation Charlotte Corday were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and in 1968 received a presidential pardon. Allen de la Tocnaet, Jacques Prévost and Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry were sentenced to death. However, Jacques Prévost and Allen de la Tocnais were commuted. On March 11, 1963, 35-year-old Bastien-Thiry was shot at Fort Ivry. The execution of Lieutenant Colonel Bastien-Thiry was the last execution in the history of modern France.
During 1962-1963. The OAS was practically crushed. Algeria, having become an independent state, began to play an important role in supporting many Arab nationalist and African national liberation movements. Almost all French colonists were forced to flee from Algeria to France in a hurry, as well as a significant part of the Algerians, who were somehow involved in cooperation with the colonial authorities.
But the construction of an independent Algeria did not become a panacea for poverty, armed conflicts, arbitrariness of the authorities and terrorism for the ordinary inhabitants of this country. More than half a century has passed since the events described, and tens of thousands of migrants continue to arrive from Algeria to France. At the same time, they try to preserve their national and religious identity, customs, way of life even in their new place of residence. If earlier France colonized Algeria, now Algerians and immigrants from other countries of Africa and the Middle East are methodically settling in France itself.
