Georges Watin (10 May 1923 - 19 February 1994), nicknamed la Boîteuse [the feminine version of "The Limper"], was an Algerian-born French agricultural manager and militant activist of the counter-revolutionary Organisation armée secrète.
His plans and actions were a major inspiration for events depicted in Frederick Forsyth's début novel, The Day of the Jackal, in which he called Watin "The most dangerous man in the room".
He violently opposed the movement towards independence for Algeria and expressed such views as a member of the L'Union française nord-africaine (UFNA), founded by local vineyard owner Robert Martel in 1955.
UFNA merged with the Mouvement populaire du 13-Mai and Martel replaced general Lionel-Max Chassin as its leader, steering it towards resentment against the French Fourth Republic and Gaulliste politics.
Planned by colonel and missile engineer Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (acting as a lookout) on a route taking de Gaulle to Villacoublay airport, the plot's members fired over one-hundred-and-eighty shots with automatic weapons.
In February 1963, Watin was the organiser of a plot aiming to kill de Gaulle with a sniper - captain Robert Poinard - who was to use a rifle with telescopic sight to shoot the president inspecting the honour guard in the cobbled École Militaire courtyard during a visit.
This event - following the Petit-Clamart shooting and Watin's continued evasion of the authorities - with first-hand knowledge gained as a Reuters journalist in Paris that most OAS supporters were under surveillance - inspired writer Frederick Forsyth to create a foreign sniper codenamed Chacal for his 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal.
[2][13][14] In 1990, Watin stated that the initial plan was to "kidnap him [de Gaulle], bring him to justice before a military court-martial, and only then execute him," for supporting Algeria's independence.