Theft of Philippe Pétain's coffin
The operation, carried out by a commando of six men close to the extreme right, was intended to transfer the Marshal's remains to the ossuary at Douaumont, near Verdun, as a sort of "rehabilitation" for Philippe Pétain's supporters.
On June 29, 1951, in view of his poor health, he was placed under house arrest in Paul Luco's private home (now an annex of the Nantes military hospital) in Port-Joinville, the commune's main town.
After his death, the Association for the Defence of the Memory of Marshal Pétain (ADMP) regularly called for his remains to be transferred to Verdun, in the name of "national reconciliation".
[2] Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour went to île d'Yeu in January 1973 to do some initial scouting,[3] in particular to find out about the constraints of the "La Vendée" ferry timetable, linked to tide times.
[3] He set up the operation with Hubert Massol, one of his deputies at the Alliance républicaine pour les libertés et le progrès (ARLP), the political party he headed.
Massol recruited a team of four people, who were joined by a funeral craftsman from the Thiais cemetery in Paris, an acquaintance of Tixier-Vignancour's wife, who was to help open and close the grave.
The date chosen was the night of February 18 to 19, a few weeks before the March legislative elections, to maximize the impact of the operation and put pressure on the powers that be to relocate Pétain's remains.
On Sunday, the other five members arrived on the island by ferry as mere passengers, leaving their vehicles in the port of Fromentine, on the Vendée coast, while the shopkeeper discreetly returned to the mainland without the van,[3] but accompanied by Pierre Garau.
[3] The tombstone was put back in place, the joints redone and the surrounding area raked to remove the many footprints and cement splinters left by the opening of the grave.
The coffin, surprisingly well preserved[3] after more than twenty years, was loaded into the estafette,[3] which was pushed out of the cemetery, engine off, to avoid making any noise[3] (the Gendarmerie is right next door, and some of its windows overlook the graves).
[3] Accompanied by an examining magistrate from Sables-d'Olonne, the prefect and the public prosecutor set off for Ile d'Yeu (as the next ferry was too late due to the tide, a helicopter was made available).
In fact, Michel Dumas had used Spanish newspapers, found by chance in the van, to fill in the hole made by the percussion of the crowbar when opening the coffin,[3] for lack of sufficient cement.
[9] This seemed a credible lead to investigators, given that Spain was still home to former French collaborators such as Louis Darquier de Pellepoix[3] and former Belgian fascist leader Léon Degrelle, who had once promised to "go and liberate Marshal Pétain".
[4] The coffin was immediately taken by ambulance to the church of the Val-de-Grâce military hospital,[10] where it was placed in an apse, covered with the tricolor flag and watched over overnight by some twenty mobile guards.
[3][11] In the morning, at 8:30 a.m., in the presence of the Paris Police Prefect,[10] he was flown to the Villacoublay air base and taken by military aircraft[10] and then by Puma helicopter[3] to the Ile d'Yeu.
After a brief religious ceremony at the Notre-Dame-du-Port church[10] in Port-Joinville, the coffin was placed back in its grave[3] in the presence of the Vendée prefect, the public prosecutor, the examining magistrate, veterans and a crowd of curious onlookers and journalists.
The examining magistrate Louis Calvet to whom they were presented in Sables-d'Olonne on February 24[3] charged them, along with François Boux de Casson,[13] but released them the same day.
[3] Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, who had not been implicated by the members of the commando and for lack of evidence, was not questioned[3] (he even claimed in a subsequent television interview that he could never have imagined that Hubert Massol was involved in the affair).
