when the GIGN attacked the hostage-takers of the Algiers-Paris flight at Marignane airport

On December 26, 1994, a plane landed on the tarmac of Marignane airport with 172 hostages on board, held by four terrorists from the Armed Islamist Group (GIA), the most radical of the Algerian terrorist movements. A look back at the hours that led to the final assault on the GIGN.

These spectacular images were filmed by regional television at the time, followed by millions of French people. During the 54 hours that the hostage-taking lasted, they held their breath. This assault remains to this day the main feat of arms of the GIGN, the elite group of the National Gendarmerie, which intervened to free the hostages. This December 26, 2024, celebrates the 30th anniversary of this event.

An eventful Christmas Eve

It all began on Christmas Eve 1994. At 11 a.m., on the tarmac of Algiers airport. The 227 passengers of Air France flight 8969 to Paris board the Airbus A300.

Four men presenting themselves as police officers, who had come for an unannounced identity check, also boarded. “We are from the GIA! We are killers, we take control of the plane”, they shout at the passengers, brandishing handguns and Kalashnikovs. The hijackers, members of the most radical of Algerian terrorist movements, are also demanding the release of the two historic leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front, Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj, imprisoned in Algeria for endangering state security.

The first negotiations with the local authorities were a failure. On December 25, the hostage-takers demanded the removal of the gangways in order to take off for Paris, where they said they “wanted to hold a press conference”.

When the Algerian authorities refused to let the plane leave, the terrorists summarily executed a hostage, a 30-year-old Algerian police officer. His body is thrown onto the footbridge. A few hours later, however, 67 hostages were released, allowing the hostage-takers to be identified. There are 160 left on board the plane as well as the 12 crew members, who will experience the two longest days of their lives.

A crisis unit is already at work in France. Prime Minister Edouard Balladur proposes to attack the GIGN. On leave for the holidays, the elite gendarmes were urgently recalled and prepositioned in Palma de Mallorca, halfway between Paris and Algiers. But Algeria refuses any external intervention on its national territory. The Algerian authorities also initially refused to allow the plane to be received on French soil. They called in the mother of commando leader Abdallah Yahia to beg him to surrender. It's a failure. The terrorists execute a second hostage, a commercial advisor to the Vietnamese embassy.

On the evening of the 25th, Yannick Beugnet, cook at the French embassy in Algiers, spoke to the control tower from the cockpit. On the radio, he conveys the hijackers' message: if the plane cannot take off by 9:30 p.m., the hostages will die. At 9:31 p.m., the 28-year-old Frenchman was shot in the head and his body was thrown onto the tarmac. Terrorists threaten to kill a hostage every 30 minutes.

France increases pressure on the Algerian government. “A plane is like a tube through which it is difficult to distinguish passengers from hostage-takers, analyzes Denis Favier, head of GIGN, in an interview given on May 22, 2004 to Le Figaro. It's a closed universe, full of kerosene. From the outset, we envisage the disaster scenario, something which would have prefigured that of September 11, 2001…”.

The plane finally took off from Algiers at 2:20 a.m. on December 26. The terrorists want to land in Paris, but under the pretext of supplying him with kerosene, he has to make a stopover in Marignane. On the tarmac of the Provençal airport, thirty elite gendarmes from the GIGN are already preparing to intervene. There is no question of letting the commando fly away, the authorities fear a kamikaze operation in the Capital. Marseille-Provence airport is closed to traffic, all flights canceled until further notice.

At the time, Jacques Beaume was the public prosecutor of Aix-en-Provence, he was part of the crisis unit which negotiated with the terrorists. “In our heads, it was obvious that this plane would not leave”he told France 3 Provence-Alpes on December 26, 2004.

We were firmly convinced that there were too many risks anywhere this evening for this plane to leave Marignane soil.

Jacques Beaume, Public Prosecutor of Aix-en-Provence in 1994

France 3 (December 26, 2004)

Marseille police chief Alain Gehin takes control of the negotiations, supported by two GIGN negotiators, to keep the plane on the ground. During the long hours of negotiations, the GIGN prepared its attack.

The plane is heading towards the control tower. Contacts with terrorists are limited. Gunshots ring out in the direction of the tower. GIGN snipers are ready.

At 5:12 p.m., squadron leader Denis Favier attacked. Three teams enter the plane. The first two blow up the rear doors, from which the first hostages are extracted on slides in the minutes that follow.

“We chose to act flexibly. Our intention was to only use the weapon in self-defense, so we did not use explosives to penetrate”declared Denis Favier on France 2, a few hours after the assault. The third team entered through the right front door of the plane to neutralize the cockpit and immediately found themselves in contact with the hostage-takers' fire.

More than a thousand bullets fired, grenades, explosive devices… The war rages in the cabin. “Inside the plane, it was hell, especially for the element that entered through the right front door.says the commander. The co-pilot, Jean-Paul Borderie, threw himself out of the window to escape the shots. He managed to escape, but he broke his leg in his fall.

It is the captain who announces that the terrorists have fallen: “Stop shooting, they are all dead. There are still French people alive”. At 5:29 p.m., the assault was over. It lasted 16 minutes. The hostages are all safe.

In 2004 for France 3, Jacques Beaume still can't believe this “absolutely unimaginable moment”. “We couldn't see, we only had the sound, we said to ourselves, there could be dozens of dead, it's unimaginable that no one was killed inside”.

There were 25 injured: thirteen passengers, three crew members and nine GIGN gendarmes, including one very seriously injured, hit in the shoulder and legs.

“In fourteen years of GIGN, this is the first time that I have participated in such a perilous operation.”later confided Thierry P., a member of the assault column of the right front door, seriously injured.

The same evening, at a press conference, Edouard Balladur praised the courage and efficiency of the special forces gendarmes. The group will be received on February 15 at the Élysée, by President Mitterrand, expressing to them “the gratitude of the nation”.

Relayed by the media around the world, the assault was brought to the cinema screen in 2011, by director Julien Leclercq, with Vincent Elbaz, in the role of Denis Favier.

The hostage-takers, Abdul Abdallah Yahia, Makhlouf Benguettaf, and their two accomplices, nicknamed “Lotfi” and “Maboul” were buried in France, their bodies having never been claimed by their family.