[3] Journiac first rose to power under Georges Pompidou as a right-hand man of Jacques Foccart and was seen as perpetuating the latter's approach of maintaining French influence in its former colonies through a web of personal relationships with African strongmen.
[4] This led the French historian Pascal Geneste to quip that "what Foccart was to de Gaulle, Journiac is to Pompidou".
[6] He was also closely involved in Operation Tacaud in Chad[7] and played an important role in negotiating with Jean-Bédel Bokassa (who allegedly threatened to beat Journiac with his cane when the latter proposed that he step down) in the period that built up to the French-orchestrated 1979 coup.
[8] In 1980, while travelling in a Gabonese airplane piloted by a nephew of Omar Bongo, Journiac's plane crashed in Cameroon, killing him.
[9] Martin Kirsch briefly succeeded him as head of the African Department before being replaced by Guy Penne [fr].