The presidential couple were returning to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, their country home about halfway between the French capital and Strasbourg to the east. They were traveling in a black Citroën DS, followed by an escort vehicle and two police officers on motorbikes with Triumph bikes. As the Citroën passed through the southern suburb of Petit-Clamart, a group of machine-gun strikes hit De Gaulle’s vehicle and nearby shops. The president and his wife ducked and escaped unharmed, despite the fact that the car was hit several times and the bullets passed within inches of de Gaulle’s head. The president’s car roared toward the airport. After the ambush, which lasted 45 seconds, investigators collected a total of 187 shell casings from the scene. “They are such bad plans,” De Gaulle, then 71 and a French World War II hero, later joked. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The damaged Citroën after the attack. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Today, 60 years later, France remembers the president’s narrow escape, which was depicted at the beginning of British author Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal and the 1973 film of the same name. The attempt was blamed on the Secret Armed Organization (OAS), a right-wing French paramilitary group opposed to Algerian independence. The OAS had carried out a series of targeted assassinations and attacks in France and Algeria following the Évian Accords, signed in March 1962, which granted independence to the former French colony. De Gaulle, who had organized a referendum on independence the previous year, was the main target of the group, whose slogan was L’Algérie est française et le restera (Algeria is French and will remain so). The mastermind of the Petit-Clamart ambush, Jean Bastien-Thiry, then 34, a French Air Force lieutenant colonel and reportedly a brilliant military engineer, was reported not to have been a member of the OAS but had ties to the group. Thierry was executed in 1963 after de Gaulle refused to pardon him. He was the last man to be executed by firing squad in France and left behind a wife and three young daughters. Two accomplices who shot the president and were also sentenced to death had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Jean-Paul Sartre was another target of the OAS because of his support for Algerian independence. The writer’s apartment in Paris was attacked twice with plastic explosives.
