Par
Thomas Martin
Published on
June 29, 2024 at 8:02 a.m.
See my news
Follow - Paris
A monument that bows out. Philippe Bouvard, 94 years old, announced that he would stop radio in January 2025… By that date, he will have established a double record: 60 years of radio and 60 years of RTL. If the career of the former host of Grosses Têtes is known to the general public, an event in his life linked to the former public enemy number one, Jacques Mesrine, is less so.
End of Mestine’s escape at Porte de Clignancourt
It is November 2, 1979. Jacques Mesrine is killed by the police at Porte de Clignancourt in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, at the wheel of his car, a metallic brown BMW 528i. At his side, his partner Sylvia Jeanjacquot is seriously injured. The life of the notorious criminal nicknamed “the man with a thousand faces” ends here after more than a year and a half on the run.
Once his death was confirmed, the police searched Jacques Mesrine. And there, surprise, they discovered in his jacket a map of the villa in Vésinet (Yvelines) and the registration numbers of his cars, as well as the routes he took in the evening to return home.
“He had decided to kidnap me,” the host explained several years ago on the show The time of the crime.
A journalist left for dead
But why attack Philippe Bouvard? The latter had his idea: “I had devoted two or three rather vengeful columns to Mesrine to protest against the fact that this public enemy n°1, because he had released a bestseller and knew how to use the language French, had become a master thinker of French society.
Philippe Bouvard should therefore have been his last “client”. Another journalist will be less lucky. Jacques Tillier, from the Minute newspaper, thought he had landed an interview with Jacques Mesrine, the meeting will turn into a nightmare. Abducted on September 10, 1979, he was tortured and left for dead.
Fate turned out more favorably for Philippe Bouvard.
Follow all the news from your favorite cities and media by subscribing to Mon -.
