Jean-Charles Marchiani et Jacques Chirac

Jean-Charles Marchiani (born 6 August 1943) is a French prefect, former intelligence officer and politician who served as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

for France from 1999 to 2004, representing the Rally for France party. Prior to his political career, Marchiani was a hostage negotiator responsible for overseeing the release of French hostages in Lebanon and Bosnia.

Intelligence and counter-terrorism

Jean-Charles Marchiani was only 19 when he was recruited by the SDECE, while completing Law school in

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence, or simply Aix, is a List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, city and Communes of France, commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is the Subprefectures in France, s ...

(south-east of France), during the

Algerian war The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...

. From 1962 to 1970, he served as a SDECE officer. In 1970, he started a career in the private sector. From 1986 to 1988 and from 1993 to 1995, Marchiani was appointed as a special advisor for Homeland Security Minister Charles Pasqua. He was notably in charge of intelligence and counter-terrorism during the 1995 Algerian GIA terrorist attacks in Paris.

Negotiations and hostages crisis

Lebanon hostages crisis

Jean-Charles Marchiani became a national hero in France in 1988, when he managed to free three French civilians, held hostages for three years in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

by Hezbollah militias. Despite official intelligence agencies' efforts, diplomats Marcel Carton and Marcel Fonataine, as well as journalist Jean-Paul Kauffmann were kept prisoners for more than three years. Jean-Charles Marchiani held double negotiations with Hezbollah dignitaries in Lebanon as well as with Iranian and Syrian officials. Amongst them, former Iranian-Jewish SAVAK / DGSE agent Manucher Ghorbanifar had been stated to have also accompanied Marchiani during his meetings. He was therefore able to free the three French nationals on May 5, 1988.

Liberation of Air Force pilots in Bosnia

Jean-Charles Marchiani was asked in September 1995 by French president

Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, ; ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Pari ...

to start unofficial negotiations with Bosnian nationalists for the liberation of two French Air Force pilots whose jet had been shot down during the

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

bombings in former Yugoslavia. Jean-Charles Marchiani used his connections with former

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

officers to contact Serbian president

Radovan Karadžić Radovan Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Радован Караџић, ; born 19 June 1945) is a Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serb politician who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal ...

and threatened him to have French forces leaving

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...

, where they were protecting Serbian minority. On December 12, 1995, the two pilots were freed and sent back to France.

Political career

A few weeks after the liberation of French pilots in 1996, Jean-Charles Marchiani was appointed by Jacques Chirac to prefect of the Var region (South East). Along with Charles Pasqua and Philippe de Villiers, Jean-Charles Marchiani was one of the founding members of the Rally for France (; abbreviated RPF), a right-wing party created in 1999. The RPF got 13% of the vote during

1999 European Parliament election The 1999 European Parliament election was a European election for all 626 members of the European Parliament held across the 15 European Union member states on 10, 11 and 13 June 1999. The voter turn-out was generally low, except in Belgium and ...

, and Marchiani was elected as a

. Marchiani has been involved in a serie of politico-judicial cases since the early 2000s, involving former French president Jacques Chirac. These cases are connected with Marchiani's shadow's operations and most of them are under the Secret Defense, which Jean-Charles Marchiani has asked to be lifted for a fair trial.''The New York Times''
2008/12/28 Marchiani was sentenced in 2007 to three years in jail, but was later amnestied by French president Nicolas Sarkozy. In the meantime, French Defence minister Hervé Morin wrote to the judge in charge of the case to ask him to drop the charges against Jean-Charles Marchiani.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marchiani, Jean-Charles 1943 births Living people Rally for France MEPs MEPs for France 1999–2004 Recipients of French presidential pardons Prefects of France Prefects of Var (department)