François de Grossouvre

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François de Grossouvre (March 29, 1918, Vienne, Isère – April 7, 1994, Paris) was a French politician charged in 1981 by newly-elected president François Mitterrand with overseeing national security and other sensitive matters, in particular those concerning Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Gabon, the Gulf countries, Pakistan and the two Koreas. He was also in charge of the French branch of Gladio, NATO's stay-behind paramilitary secret armies during the Cold War ^{[1] [2]}.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Industrial activities 3 Relations with François Mitterrand 4 Death 5 References 6 Bibliography 7 External links

[edit] Biography

François de Grossouvre was born in an aristocratic family, the descendant of Jean-François Durand, lord of Grossouvre (1735-1832) ^[3]. His father, a banker, died in 1923 in Beyrouth where he resided. François de Grossouvre would keep affective ties to Lebanon hereafter. He then studied with the Jesuits in France and studied medicine.

During World War II, François de Grossouvre was affected as auxiliary physician in a regiment of Moroccan tirailleurs, and then joined the ski troops in the Vercors region. There he met Captain Bousquet, who created one of the first units of the Organisation de résistance de l'armée (ORA). He then returned to Lyon, where he received his doctorate in 1942. Afterward, he became doctor of the 11th regiment of Cuirassiers, headed by Colonel Lormeau ^[4].

Grossouvre then became a member of Joseph Darnand's Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL), a Vichyst militia. He then left it in 1943 to fight in the Vercors, joining the Maquis of the Chartreuse, near Grenoble (code-name "Clober"). After the Liberation, it was found that he had in fact infiltrated the SOL on behalf of ORA.

Grossouvre was then recruited in 1950 by the French SDECE intelligence agency to replace Gilbert Union, official in Lyon and who had worked with the military agency BCRA, and became leader of Arc-en-Ciel, the regional branch of Gladio (Lyon region), NATO's stay-behind anti-communist organizations during the Cold War, under the code-name "Monsieur Leduc" ^{[1] [5]}. According to former SDECE agent Louis Mouchon, "His business, the A. Berger et Cie Sugar company, offered ample opportunities to stage fronts. He really had excellent contacts." According to The Economist's obituary, "He was recruited into the French espionage service and helped to organise Gladio, an American backed plan to create an armed resistance movement in Western Europe against a Russian invasion."

Created by colonel Fourcaud, in liaison with the US National Security Council, and then by Grossouvre, this network allegedly used the SAC Gaullist militia and the DPS, the National Front's currently dissolved militia ^[6]. The DPS was created along with Jacques Foccart, after the 1982 dissolution of the SAC, and allegedly provided mercenaries for activities in the former French colonies in Africa ^[7].

He met Pierre Mendès France during the war, on a bomber. Mendès France who would later introduce him to François Mitterrand.

[edit] Industrial activities

In 1943 he married Claudette Berger, daughter of an industrial, Antoiner Berger, and had six children. Grossouvre would lead his family-in-law's societies Le Bon sucre (1944-63) and A. Berger et Cie (1949-63), and then founded the Générale Sucrière sugar company. Along with Italian collaborators, business man Gilbert Beaujolin and the American Alexandre Patty, succeeds in obtaining an exclusive production licence for Coca Cola and building the first factory of this type in France. The distribution is assured by the Société parisienne de boisons gazeuses and the Glacières de Paris, both subsidiaries of Pastis Pernod ^[8]

Besides this industrial activity, François de Grossouvre was counsellor for foreign trade of France (1952-67) and vice-president of the Chambre de commerce franco-sarroise (1955-62). He invested some capital in the 1953 creation of L'Express magazine, and would build during this occasion a friendship with Françoise Giroud and Jean-Jacques Servan Schreiber. Grossouvre becomes in the 1970s the largest shareholder of La Montagne and the Journal du Centre regional dailies.

[edit] Relations with François Mitterrand

Grossouvre became a friend of Mitterrand during a travel to China in 1959, and participated to the Convention des institutions républicaines (CIR), a party created by Mitterrand in 1964, and which dissolved itself at the 1971 Epinay Congress of the Socialist Party (PS). He was part of the triumvirate which presided the Fédération de la Gauche Démocrate Socialiste (FGDS) party directed by Mitterrand, who charged him, besides other things, of the negotiations with the Communist Party (PCF). In 1974, Grossouvre became the godfather of Mazarine Pingeot, Mitterrand's daughter, whose existence was dissimulated until the 1990s ^{[1] [9]}.

Grossouvre participated in all of Mitterrand's campaigns, starting from 1965 with the CIR, to the last one in 1988 (and 1974 as well as 1981). He followed Mitterrand to the Elysée Palace in 1981, named in June chargé de mission (operations manager) and then conseiller du président (counsellor of the president) of President Mitterrand, who confied him security and other sensible matters, in particular related to Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Gabon, Gulf countries, Pakistan and both Coreas. He traveled a lot, in particular to Arabs countries where he worked in arms trade. His relations with the Gemayel and Syrian president Hafez el Assad helped him assist in the negotiations for French hostages in the mid-1980s ^[10].

Grossouvre cumulated these functions with the presidency of the Comité des chasses présidentielles (Committee of Presidential Hunts), in charge of the hunting domains of the presidency. He would keep this function until his death, and used the domains for informal meetings ^[1][10].

According to Le Figaro, the decision to sink the Rainbow Warrior on July 10, 1985 was taken in a June metting at the Elysée Palace, attended by Charles Hernu, minister of Defense, Admiral Lacoste and François de Grossouvre ^{[2] [11]}

In July 1985, he officially ended his functions as adviser to the president, and worked as a international counsellor for arms-trader Marcel Dassault (1986-86) ^{[12] [10]}. He nevertheless kept his office at the Elysée, his flat on the Quai Branly, a secretary and bodyguards from the GIGN, with the corresponding budget, although he began to take some distances with Mitterrand (and increasingly opposed himself to Gilles Ménage, other advisor for the President). Grossouvre was nicknamed by some "L'Homme de l'ombre" (The Man of the Shadows) ^{[13] [14]}.

[edit] Death

Grossouvre allegedly committed suicide on April 7, 1994, although some, such as Captain Paul Barril, claimed that he had been murdered ^[15]. He was discovered dead, two bullets in his head, in his office at the Elysée — several hours after the assassination of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana. Barril, who worked in Rwanda, presented himself in his book Guerres secrètes à l’Élysée (Secret Wars in the Elysée) as an "intime" of Grossouvre ^[16].

The "hurt friend" of Mitterrand according to Le Monde daily, Grossouvre voluntarily gave evidence to a judge investigating the case of Roger-Patrice Pelat, a businessman who reportedly financed many of Mitterrand's political campaigns and who was facing charges of insider trading when he died of natural causes in 1989. ^[14]

Grossouvres's funeral took place on April 11, 1994 at Saint-Pierre de Moulins (Allier) church. Among the 400 persons assembled were president François Mitterrand, former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel, diplomatic representatives from Morocco and Pakistan, and former socialist ministers Pierre Joxe, Louis Mexandeau and René Souchon.

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Éminences grises, de Roger Faligot et Rémi Kauffer, éd. Fayard, 1992.
• Les éminences grises, de Christine Fauvet-Mycia, éd. Belfond, 1988.
• Guerres secrètes à l'Élysée, du Capitaine Paul Barril, éd. Albin Michel, 1996.
• La Décennie Mitterrand, Pierre Favier et Michel Martin-Roland, éd. du Seuil, tome 4, 1999
• Interlocuteur privilégié, Daniel Gamba, J'ai lu, 2003
• Le grand secret, de Claude Gubler et Michel Gonod, PLON, 1996.
• Le Point du 5 avril 2002, N° 1542, page 15. [L'auteur a récusé depuis toute idée d'assassinat]
• VSD, 09-15 août 2001, pages 86-89.
• Historia, février 2002, N° 662, pages 62-63.
• Who's Who in France, 24° Edition 1992-1993.
• Aucun témoin ne doit survivre, Le génocide au Rwanda, d'Alison Des Forges, ed. Karthala, 1999. [Propagande FPR]
• Le Cabinet noir, avec François de Grossouvre au coeur de l'Elysée de Mitterrand, de Frédéric Laurent, éd. Albin Michel, novembre 2006. ISBN 978-2226175083
• La Nouvelle Revue d'Histoire, par Dominique Venner, janvier-février 2007, N° 28, pages 21-24.

[edit] External links

• Archives of Le Figaro