Jean-Charles Marchiani, (born August 6, 1943) is a French prefect and politician. He is also a former officer of the French external intelligence agency (DGSE). Jean-Charles Marchiani is a counter-terrorism expert, especially focused on Islamic fundamentalism. Marchiani has notably been the head negotiator for the liberation of French hostages in Lebanon and Bosnia.
Jean-Charles Marchiani was only 19 when he was recruited by DGSE, while completing Law school in Aix-en-Provence (south-east of France), during the Algerian war. [1] From 1962 to 1970, he served as a DGSE officer. In 1970, he started a career in the private sector. From 1986 to 1988 and from 1993 to 1995, Marchiani was appointed as a special advisor for Homeland Security Minister Charles Pasqua. He was notably in charge of intelligence and counter-terrorism during the 1995 Algerian GIA terrorist attacks in Paris.
Jean-Charles Marchiani became a national hero in France in 1988, when he managed to free three French civilians, held hostages for three years in Bairut by Hezbollah militias. Despite official intelligence agencies' efforts, diplomats Marcel Carton and Marcel Fonataine, as well as journalist Jean-Paul Kauffmann were kept prisoners for more than three years. Jean-Charles Marchiani held double negotiations with Hezbollah dignitaries in Lebanon as well as with Iranian and Syrian officials. Amongst them, former Iranian-Jewish SAVAK / DGSE agent Manucher Ghorbanifar had been stated to have also accompanied Marchiani during his meetings. [2] He was therefore able to free the three French nationals on May 5, 1988. [3]
Jean-Charles Marchiani was asked in September 1995 by French president Jacques Chirac to start unofficial negotiations with Bosnian nationalists for the liberation of two French Air Force pilots whose jet had been shot down during the NATO bombings in former Yugoslavia. Jean-Charles Marchiani used his connections with former KGB officers to contact Serbian president Radovan Karadžić and threatened him to have French forces leaving Sarajevo, where they were protecting Serbian minority. On December 12, 1995, the two pilots were freed and sent back to France. [4]
Few weeks after the liberation of French pilots in 1996, Jean-Charles Marchiani was appointed by Jacques Chirac to prefect of the Var region (South East). [5]
Along with Charles Pasqua and Philippe de Villiers, Jean-Charles Marchiani was one of the founding members of the RPF (Rassemblement pour la France – Union for France), a right wing party created in 1999. The RPF got 13% of the vote during 1999 European elections, and Jean-Charles Marchiani was elected as European Member of the parliament. [6]
Marchiani has been involved in a serie of politico-judicial cases since the early 2000s, involving former French president Jacques Chirac. These cases are connected with Marchiani's shadow's operations and most of them are under the Secret Defense, which Jean-Charles Marchiani has asked to be lifted for a fair trial. [7] Marchiani was sentenced in 2007 to three years in jail, but was later amnestied by French president Nicolas Sarkozy. In the meantime, French Defence minister Hervé Morin wrote to the judge in charge of the case to ask him to drop the charges against Jean-Charles Marchiani.
Jacques René Chirac was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
Maurice Papon was a French civil servant who led the police in major prefectures from the 1930s to the 1960s, before he became a Gaullist politician. When he was secretary general for the police in Bordeaux during World War II, he participated in the deportation of more than 1,600 Jews. He is also known for his activities in the Algerian War (1954–1962), during which he tortured insurgent prisoners as prefect of the Constantinois department, and ordered, as prefect of the Paris police, the deadly repression of a pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) demonstration against a curfew that he had "advised."
Robert Denard was a French soldier of fortune and mercenary. He served as the de facto military leader of the Comoros twice with him first serving from 13 May 1978 to 15 December 1989 and again briefly from 28 September to 5 October 1995. Sometimes known under the aliases Gilbert Bourgeaud and Saïd Mustapha Mhadjou, he was known for having performed various jobs in support of Françafrique—France's sphere of influence in its former colonies in Africa—for Jacques Foccart, co-ordinator of President Charles de Gaulle's African policy.
The Rally for the Republic, was a Gaullist and conservative political party in France. Originating from the Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR), it was founded by Jacques Chirac in 1976 and presented itself as the heir of Gaullist politics. On 21 September 2002, the RPR was merged into the Union for the Presidential Majority, later renamed the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).
In France, the term Gaullist Party is usually used to refer to the largest party professing to be Gaullist. Gaullism claims to transcend the left–right divide in a similar way to populist republican parties elsewhere such as Fianna Fáil in Republic of Ireland, the Justicialist Party in Argentina, and the African National Congress in South Africa.
The General Directorate for External Security is France's foreign intelligence agency, equivalent to the British MI6 and the American CIA, established on 2 April 1982. The DGSE safeguards French national security through intelligence gathering and conducting paramilitary and counterintelligence operations abroad, as well as economic espionage. It is headquartered in the 20th arrondissement of Paris.
Charles Victor Pasqua was a French businessman and Gaullist politician. He was Interior Minister from 1986 to 1988, under Jacques Chirac's cohabitation government, and also from 1993 to 1995, under the government of Edouard Balladur.
A series of attacks targeted public transport systems in Paris and Lyon, as well as a school in Villeurbanne, in 1995. They were carried out by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), who sought to expand the Algerian Civil War to France. The attacks killed eight people, all during the first attack on 25 July. The attack also injured 190 people.
Jacques Soustelle was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces, a politician who served in the French National Assembly and at one time served as Governor General of Algeria, an anthropologist specializing in Pre-Columbian civilizations, and vice-director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 1939. Soustelle and his followers opposed any compromise with anticolonial activists in Algeria in the Algerian War.
Manucher Ghorbanifar is an expatriate Iranian arms dealer and former SAVAK agent.
Alliance Base was the cover name for a secret Western Counterterrorist Intelligence Center (CTIC) that existed between 2002 and 2009 in Paris. The existence of CTICs were first revealed by Dana Priest in a November 17, 2005 article in The Washington Post, while she referred to the Alliance Base in a July 2, 2005, article. The name was chosen in reference of Al Qaeda, which means "The Base" in Arabic. It was headed by a French General assigned to the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), and largely funded by the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. It hosted officers from Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and the United States and was used for intelligence exchange and operational planning. Its existence was confirmed on 8 September 2006 by Christophe Chaboud, chief of the UCLAT, in an interview to RFI. Although intelligence exchange between intelligence agencies has become more and more widespread in the last decade, in particular following the September 11, 2001 attacks, this organisation also engaged in operations.
The SAC, officially created in January 1960, was a Gaullist militia founded by Jacques Foccart, Charles de Gaulle's chief adviser for African matters, and Pierre Debizet, a former Resistant and official director of the group. Important members included Charles Pasqua, part of the Gaullist movement and known as Jacques Chirac's mentor, Etienne Léandri, a friend of Pasqua, Robert Pandraud or Christian Fouchet. The predecessor of the SAC was the service of order of the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF) Gaullist party. The SAC was dissolved in 1982 under François Mitterrand's government, after a particularly gruesome multiple murder triggered by internal rivalries.
Jacques Foccart was a French businessman and politician, best known as a chief adviser to French presidents on African affairs. He was also a co-founder of the Gaullist Service d'Action Civique (SAC) in 1959 with Charles Pasqua, which specialized in covert operations in Africa.
Jean-Charles Brisard is a French international consultant and expert on terrorism.
The Mitterrand–Pasqua affair, also known informally as Angolagate, was an international political scandal over the secret sale and shipment of arms from Central Europe to the government of Angola by the Government of France in the 1990s. The scandal has been tied to several prominent figures in French politics.
European Parliament elections were held in France on 13 June 1999. Once again, abstention was very high for this type of election- only 47% of eligible voters voted. The election was also the first French European election to be won by the Socialist Party (PS).
Major General Smain Lamari was the head of an Algerian intelligence service, the Department of Counter-Espionage and Internal Security.
L'Opération 14 juillet was a failed French operation to rescue Íngrid Betancourt from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in July 2003. Organized by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, the mission failed to make contact with FARC guerrillas and eventually returned home. After details of the operation leaked in the Brazilian press, a political scandal erupted in France.
Jean-Yves Ollivier is a French businessman who works primarily in the commodities sector in emerging markets.
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