Jean-Charles Gille

[1] Gille was born in Trier (Germany), where his father, originally from Lorraine, was a superior officer in the French garrison.

After graduation, and a year of specialization at the École nationale supérieure de l'Aéronautique, he studied at Harvard where he received a Master of Arts degree in the newly created automation discipline.

Back in France in 1948, he entered the Services techniques aéronautiques and worked in the engines and special objects.

[2] In 1963, he was a defense witness at the trial of Jean Bastien-Thiry, one of the perpetrators of an assassination attempt against President de Gaulle.

He was Honoris Causa Doctor of Silesian University of Technology and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.