1962: De Gaulle Survives a Hail of Bullets at Petit-Clamart
On the evening of 22 August 1962, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean Bastien-Thiry led a carefully planned ambush on the presidential motorcade at Petit-Clamart, south of Paris. Acting under the banner of the Organisation armee secrete (OAS), his team opened fire with automatic weapons as de Gaulle’s car passed, riddling the vehicle with bullets. The president and his wife escaped without injury.
The attack, code-named Operation Charlotte Corday, triggered a massive manhunt that swept up nearly all participants within months. Bastien-Thiry was brought before a military court, where he justified the attempt by declaring de Gaulle a tyrant who had betrayed French Algeria. He was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad in March 1963, the last person to die by that method in France.
