Talk:Jean Bastien-Thiry

Misc
"the last true patriot who attempted to eliminate President of France Charles de Gaulle" --> 'the last true patriot', isn't that endorsing his actions? 218.215.13.200 13:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
to Geo115fr : I'm not an anonymous poster like you : I'm Olivier Cazeaux, French graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris where I especially learnt contemporary French History (professor Raoul Girardet and guest professor Stanley Hoffmann) and later I did my own investigation about Bastien-Thiry. My words definitely not condone Bastien's responsibility since he claimed this one himself in his statement. I only have provided details about the political context and about Bastien's exectution. And I compared De Gaulle's clemency (as it was underlined at the time by many observers) towards SS generals Carl Oberg and Helmut Knochen with De Gaulle's outright refusal to give his pardon to an officer who has killed nobody (even if he tried). My addition cannot be considered therefore as a distorsion of NPOV Wikipedia principle.

OC Algeriatruth

I cancelled NPOV statements inserted recently by anonymous posters (specifically 82.251.138.38 and 82.65.155.14) that essentially condone the assassination attemps by Bastien Thiry. --Geo115fr (talk) 14:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

? Why have these words been cut : " In fact only a fistfull of French know who is Bastien-Thiry and for most of them he is a kind of lunatic fascist. De Gaulle's propaganda would has been very efficient."

I'm a French graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris where I especially learnt contemporary French History and later I did my own investigation about Bastien-Thiry.

OC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.253.143.144 (talk) 22:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

O. Cazeaux's response to Geo115fr:
 * Jean Lacouture is not at all the ultimate reference for De Gaulle's study. First he isn't an academic and second, he is renowned to be a De Gaulle's unconditional supporter.


 * I never said all FLN men were former pro-nazi but it can be denied many of their heads have fought for the Gestapo in France inside a unit named North African Brigad. Besides several Waffen SS were composed with Muslims (most of them coming from the Balkans) and Jerusalem Grand Mufti was clearly a pro-nazi and anti-Judaism supporter.  After the WWII, it is known that former German nazis officers were hired by Muslim governments such as Egyptian Nasser's one.  And  precisely Nasser, who was the most important Pan Arabian leader, gives an idea of the mixed ideology of Arab nationalists of this period:  a part of marxism, a part of Islam, a part of Arabian proudness and a part of anti-Judaism and anti-Christianism.  Have things actually changed since then ?


 * About De Gaulle and the Constitution, it's easy to make one's opinion: read especially articles 1, 3 and 89.  High ranking French officials accused with sustainable arguments De Gaulle of felony (President of Senate Monnerville, former French Resistance heads and secretaries Bidault and Soustelle for instance).


 * Bastien's family was not kidding at all when reporting a high ranking US Army officer insured Bastien once freed (because nobody could imagine he would be sentenced to death after De Gaulle had freed in Nov 1962 general Oberg, former chief in France of all German police units including Gestapo, something few people know but cannot be denied) would be offered a job at Nasa or other US defence dept. Bastien was a worldwide renowned radiocontrolled missiles expert ; he especially designed the famous SS 11.


 * The fact prez Giscard and some of his mates were close to OAS has been reported by several European newspapers (on the basis of a secret message sent to OAS chief general Salan) and if there is no actual proof it's true, it's as we say in France, a secret of Pulcinella (open secret).  What's more it cannot be denied former OAS soldiers as Jacques Prevost (who was involved in Petit-Clamart attempt) were hired by Giscard HQ during 1974 presidential election.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.65.29.154 (talk) 00:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Changes in contents made after 30 November 30th 2006 are clearly biaised and the "response" below from Olivier Cazeaux as well.


 * His text is contradicted by the reference of the article (Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Ruler 1945-1970).
 * Its statement that "arab nationalists" equals "pro-nazi gestapo gunmen" equals "marxism" is unsustainable.
 * Bastien being offered a high ranked job by NASA while in prison is the funniest joke I ever read in wikipedia.

With regards to the changes introduced in the article :
 * "De Gaulle was accused of contravening the French constitution" is non substantiated.
 * assumptions that former president Giscard d'Estaing and former minister Poniatowsky took part in the conspiration are plain defamations
 * the picture on upper right is the cover of a pro-Bastien book

So I will revert to initial text but including technical changes. --Geo115fr 15:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Response to Geo115fr|'s bleow reaction : 1. Yes the FLN wasn't essentially marxist: it was a mix of pro-red under Nasser's influence, islamists and former pro-nazi fighters who were hired during the WW2 by the Gestapo office of Paris. It has to be known that panarabism, because of its fundamental antisemitic ideology, has been supported by the IIId Reich. In France a special unit was created: the North African Brigade composed with Algerian nationalists among them Mohameidi Saïd, a genuine mobster who became one the ALN (Algerian Liberation Army) chiefs, especially fierce, bearing his german helmer when fighting against French soldiers.

2. OAS members weren't considered as terrorists but as conspirators against the governement. If actually they have committed some terrorists actions, it wouldn't be denied they've acted upon a patriotic motive. And it has to be known that many of OAS members and especially OAS heads were former Underground soldiers; for instance the Col Godard and the Lt Degueldre.

3. Marksmen of the Petit-Clamart attempt were perfectly located in order to shoot an axial fire. Because of a delay, only two bullets reached the tires but the 20 bullets shot by one of the two gun machines could have easily reached the passenger compartment since the marksman Sari was a very good shooter who'd proved his talent during the Indochina war as a Foreign Legion soldier.

4. About Bastien's depression: it was due to an overcharge of work in 1959. He therefore was cured in a hospital for three weeks. At his time Bastien was working a lot on radio controlled rockets and his expertise made him known in the USA ; visiting Nasa he was offered there a high ranked job that was confirmed later once he was in prison (because nobody could have imagined he would have been executed). De Gaulle learnt this psycho episode through his Secretary of Justice Jean Foyer. Nevertheless he refused to give his grace, in contradiction with an ancestral French and Western tradition according to which a man of State safe after an attempt must have the noble attitude to give his pardon.

5. Since many people were involved in the attempt - in fact in addition to the accused men, probably 20 or 30 accomplices - doesn't prove anyhow Bastien wanted to kill De Gaulle at once. It would have been easy for him, thanks to his responsabilities at the Air Secretary, to get a Radio controlled rocket that would have turned into powder De Gaulle's sedan within a fraction of second, whith only two men.

6. Bastien's step-father stopped his office in Petain's government in 1942, when Hitler decided to invade the south and free managed France aera. Moreover it's historically wrong to assert Vichy regime was a "nazi puppet" one. It was specifically to avoid such a situation that Petain decided to make an agreement with Hitler in 1940. There were genuine nazi puppet regimes in Netherlands, Austria, Moldavia, Hungaria, Poland etc. But in France, it was a true national government approved democratically by the Parliament. When Paris was freed in August 1944, the American government tried to make an agreement with former Vichy heads since Roosevelt was very suspicious about De Gaulle. No one can deny De Gaulle's provitionnal government has been recognized by the Allies only since October 1944 !

Olivier Cazeaux http://operationcharlottecorday.rmc.fr http://algeriatruth.rmc.fr

This article is biaised in favor of Bastien-Thiry :

- Algerian Communist Uprising is an unfair presentation of what current Algeria describes as its liberation war. The liberation movement FLN was a nationalist movement and not essentially communist. The internal link itself does not link to the relevant page of wikipedia (given above).

- refering twice to OAS members as patriots is blatantly biased. They considered themselves as patriots whereas the French judiciary sentenced them as terrorists.

- The sentence It seems the main reason why the attack did not succeed was the reluctance of the assassins to harm anybody except de Gaulle must be substantiated. If I remember correctly, few bullets hit de Gaulle's car because the gun men were wrongly placed and saw the car at the last second.

- The sentence ''When charged with the attempted assassination, some claim he received a note from his father stating: I disown you. You have dishonored me.'' are weasel words. In any case, such detail would fit nicely in a Broadway show, not in an encyclopedia.

- The sentence While claiming that the death of de Gaulle would have been justified by the "genocide" of the European population of newly-independent Algeria, and comparing himself with Claus von Stauffenberg (who under similar circumstances had memorably failed to kill Hitler in 1944) essentially presents without challenge the opinion of Bastien-Thiry.

- de Gaulle refused to pardon Bastien-Thiry despite his claims to have suffered clinical depression : According to Lacouture's book cited in the Reference section, B-T forbaded his lawyer to confirm his psychiatric history to de Gaulle. In any case, the wording suggests that a pardon is expected for any murderer suffering from depression...

- The article forgets to explain that Bastien-Thiry alleged that he didn't want the death of de Gaulle but his kidnapping, a claim difficult to believe for a plot with eleven gun men and hundreds of bullets shot.

In addition, Bastien-Thiry's step-father is refered as the Patriotic France Minister of Youth. In actual facts, he was Youth minister of the Vichy regime, a Nazi puppet regime. I don't know of any reputable historian who would name it the Patriotic France.

--Geo115fr 00:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

New text for the article
I suggest to replace this article by the following :

Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (October 19, 1927 – March 11, 1963) was a French military air weaponry engineer who attempted to assassinate President of France Charles de Gaulle.

Bastien-Thiry was born to a family of Catholic military officers in Lunéville. His father had known de Gaulle in the 1930s and was a member of the Gaullist RPF. He attended the École Polytechnique, followed by the École nationale supérieure de l'Aéronautique before going into the French Air Force where he specialized in the design of air-to-air missiles. In 1957 he was promoted to become principal air military engineer. He was married to the daughter of Vichy régime Minister of Youth Georges Lamirand, with whom he had three daughters.

De Gaulle held a referendum on self-determination in Algeria on July 1, 1962 which went overwhelmingly in favour of its independance. In defiance, Bastien-Thiry joined the OAS which was carrying out assassinations and bombings to try to prevent it.

Bastien-Thiry led the most prominent assassination attempt against De Gaulle. The group set themselves up in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart on August 22, 1962. De Gaulle's car, an unarmoured Citroën DS, and nearby shops were raked with machine gun fire but de Gaulle, along with his wife and entourage, were able to escape without injury. After the attempt, some fourteen bullet holes were found in the president's vehicle, with another twenty striking the nearby Café Trianon, and an additional one-hundred-eighty-seven found on the pavement. This event was fictionalized in the 1973 film The Day of The Jackal. De Gaulle credited the unusual abilities of the DS vehicle with saving his life — the shots had blown two of the tires, but the car could still escape at full speed.

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 from January 28 to March 4, 1963. He was defended by a legal team consisting of attorneys Jacques Isorni, Richard Dupuy, Bernard Le Coroller, and Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour. While claiming that the death of de Gaulle would have been justified by the "genocide" of the European population of newly-independent Algeria, he claimed that while the other conspirators may have admittedly 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 like-minded judges. Bastien-Thiry, who had been certified as "normal" by psychiatrists in spite of an history of clinical depression, was convicted and sentenced to death.

De Gaulle as President of France had the power of clemency. He pardoned those who fired the shots, but refused to pardon Bastien-Thiry despite an appeal from the elder Bastien-Thiry to spare his son's life. The president had before the trial expressed his intention to grant such clemency to Bastien-Thiry, saying the "idiot" would "get off with twenty years and in five years I'll free him" (Lacouture, 328). However, according to his son-in-law Alain de Bossieu, after the conspirator's conviction, de Gaulle stated four reasons for refusing to alter the sentence. First, Bastien-Thiry had directed his subordinates to fire on a car in which there was an innocent woman present (Madame de Gaulle). Secondly, he had endangered civilians, namely the Fillon family, who had been traveling in a car near that carrying de Gaulle. Thirdly, he had brought foreigners, specifically three Hungarians, into the plot. And 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.

Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was executed by firing squad at Ivry-sur-Seine on March 11, 1963, while clutching his rosary. Of the execution, de Gaulle said to an old friend, "The French need martyrs... They must choose them carefully. I could have given them one of those idiotic generals playing ball in Tulle prison. I gave them Bastien-Thiry. They'll be able to make a martyr of him.  He deserves it." (Lacouture, 329).

Bastien-Thiry / OAS
About Bastien-Thiry and OAS

I've been studying this topic for 10 years, interviewing especially former leaders of OAS and many other people who knew Bastien-Thiry. You can look out my blog Algeriatruth where some details are given on the general Algeria background with an article dedicated to Bastien-Thiry's attempt.

This case is a vey complex one and the trial didn't close it (when a standart homicide investigation is lasting some four years in France, this large scale attempt case just needed three months before it was sent to the Court).

If you are interested, I can bring you further details but now just one side of the question:

Since June 62, OAS was replaced by the CNR (National Council of Resistance) headed by the one who lead the WW2 CNR (French Underground Council) since 1943: Georges Bidault former Prime Minister and Social-Christian leader ; at his sides was another person who had a great part in the fight against the IIId Reich : Jacques Soustelle a worldwide renowned expert in ancient Central America civilizations and one of the closest De Gaulle's men since 1940 to 1960 (he headed the French secret services and after the war become the Gaullist party chairman.

Even if Bastien-Thiry asserted during the trial to have been hired by the CNR, it's certainly wrong. I've spoken with two CNR heads still in life (one is now dead the other is living in California): Bastien-Thiry wasn't connected with them and hadn't therefore received any order from them.

There was another organization much more secret and much more able to put De Gaulle away. This outfit is just noticed in some books through two names : CNR-I (for interieur, inside) and "le Vieil Etat-Major" (Old Head-Quarter). If some men of Bastien's unit were coming from OAS, they have been recruited as individuals and none of them knew anything about the organization. They even ignore Bastien actual identity, a usual underground rule. This organization is still a mystery at the time. I've some clues that provide me some guesses but I need to go on my investigation. One thing is definitely certain: Bastien never belonged to OAS and wasn't hired by it or by the CNR. The Petit-Clamart attempt was a military operation aimed to trigger a coup. And many very high ranked people were involved, possibly the reason why forty five years later, we still ignore the truth.

Please be indulgent for my English.

Sincerely

Olivier Cazeaux

A notice in Le Monde stated that Mme Genevieve Jean Bastien-Thiry, widow of Colonel Jean Bastien-Thiry, died on August 19, 1986. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.55.82.94 (talk) 03:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

POV / Awkward Phrasing
Though I do not know much about this topic, when reading it I noticed that there are some sentences that are awkwardly worded, in either a conversational, or informal style. There are some sentences that seem to push an agenda of some sort, and may not have an entirely centered POV. There is also a bit of an overuse of parentheses, as the information in them could be more fluidly integrated into the text. More citations and a review by someone fluent in English grammatical structure as well as extremely familiar with the topic would be constructive.

"He had three daughters with her."

"...the eventual secession of Algeria. (This helped push Bastien-Thiry, who up until this time had been a Gaullist, into becoming an opponent.)"

"...which was probably supported..."

"...was Jean Bichon, arrested later..."

"...with saving his life —even though the shots had punctured two of the tires (armoured) the car was still able to escape at full speed."

"The execution took place only one week after the trial, which was unusual. Probably the biggest security plan in French judicial history was organized to take Bastien-Thiry from his cell to the place of his execution."

I apologize for not completing this work myself; I refrain from doing so only because I believe that someone more educated in this topic could do a far better job than I. This subject is one that is completely unfamiliar to me, as I just stumbled across this article and topic for the first time. Thank you for your work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Italia.hill77 (talk • contribs) 03:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Speculation
Text says "de Gaulle stated his reasons for refusing to alter the sentence:", then a bulleted list follows, one item of which is "as it was much anticipated that while de Gaulle might have pardoned an assassin, he would not pardon an assassin who publicly mocked him".

Pure speculation and this is not a reason stated by de Gaulle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:AA1:1600:8E5:8C7A:C298:46A:AC2B (talk) 10:24, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:23, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Portrait of Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry.jpg

The arrest of Argoud and his subsequent interrogation could not have led to the arrest of Bastien-Thiry
Argoud was kidnapped in Germany on February 25, 1963. Bastien-Thiry’s trial for the plot started on January 28, 1963. 2600:6C54:7BF0:7530:DCB1:3EFE:71AB:C424 (talk) 06:12, 28 July 2023 (UTC)