They stopped waiting on the evening of 22 August. Over spent cartridges were found on the scene. Eight bullets pierced the coachwork of the presidential car. Two more punctured a tyre each. But the convoy of two cars and two motorcycles drove through to Villacoublay, drivers and passengers unhurt. In Petit-Clamart, a TV and radio salesroom was sprayed with bullets ; it had shut ten minutes before. Gabriel Bastien-Thiry wrote a plaidoyer for his dead brother, who is the object of a significant hagiographical literature.
At least three documentaries or docudramas have appeared on French television. The record of the trial is published. The prospect of having his day in court was what led Bastien-Thiry to stay in France and await arrest rather than fleeing the country ; the firing squad made a martyr of him. Meanwhile, de Gaulle used the attack as a perfect opportunity to undertake what amounted to a second foundation of the Fifth Republic : a successful referendum introducing the election of the president by direct universal suffrage, the dissolution of the National Assembly, and elections that returned a stable parliamentary majority for the first time in the history of any Republic.
What does he offer that is new? First, a reasonably clear and concise account of the conspiracy, underpinned by thorough examination of the recently-released police files as well as a handful of interviews for example, with the Fillon family. Second, a series of reflections arising from the attack : on the mentality of the protagonists, and the context in which they operated ; on the ethics of their actions and on their punishment ; and βhere the author stressed a contemporary relevanceβ on the balance to be struck by liberal democracies faced by terrorists between freedom and security.
Third, he uses a chapter of politique-fiction what if the attack had succeeded? This made him the despair of his security men. His many presidential journeys inside and outside France always entailed bains de foule. Often, again as on 22 August, his wife accompanied him. In reality such informers were quite unnecessary. All it took was a handful of observers at the Pont Alexandre-III or at Saint-Dizier ; and the number of possible itineraries was quite limited.
De Gaulle refused armour plating on his car and normally insisted on stopping at traffic lights. Despite his rank of lieutenant-colonel, Bastien-Thiry was really an engineer indeed, a polytechnicien in uniform, specializing in missiles. He had no combat experience and no idea of how to mount a military operation. His recruits, a mixture of army deserters, former legionnaires, and far-right activists plus three Hungarians refugees from the November rising, underwent no selection process.
