France Inter reveals that the former president of the country was heard by an investigating judge, in the case of the death of Robert Boulin in 1979. Then Minister of Labor, the latter was expected to become Prime Minister, but was entangled in a case questionable real estate to which he was preparing to respond by revealing compromising files for his party, the RPR. He was finally found dead in a pond in the Paris region, and the investigation concluded that it was suicide. Which the family refutes. Gaston Flosse, then deputy, was the last to have met him before his death.
A new summons to appear in court for Gaston Flosse. France Inter reveals that the former president of the country was heard as a witness on January 10, by videoconference, by the investigating judge responsible for the investigation into the death of Minister Robert Boulin in 1979. ” I was very surprised not to have been summoned or heard until today “, underlined Gaston Flosse, in comments reported by the national media.
Figure of Resistance then Ve Republic, minister for fifteen years, Robert Boulin was in charge of the Labor portfolio in 1979. Appreciated by public opinion, he was expected to become Prime Minister of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. But his rise had been undermined by a dubious real estate deal, against the backdrop of the purchase of land in Ramatuelle, not far from Saint-Tropez. He proclaimed his integrity, considering himself the victim of an attempt at destabilization in his own camp, and spoke of having a lot of information about the functioning of the Republic, of which he was very familiar, given his record longevity in ministries.
France Inter reminds that “according to some witnesses”he threatened “to reveal hidden financing of the RPR in connection with Françafrique and Gabon”. While he was preparing a right of reply, he was found dead at the end of October 1979, in a pond in the Paris region, several clues allowing a rapid investigation to conclude that it was suicide. His family has always refuted this thesis, favoring the possibility of an assassination sponsored in high places, in particular by the Civic Action Service of Jacques Foccart, a sulfurous organization then close to certain RPR executives, including the then president Jacques Chirac. is himself in conflict with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
-Boulin family lawyer accuses Flosse of lying
Gaston Flosse, one of the many founders of the RPR, was invited to transcribe his memories of October 29, 1979. Then deputy for Polynesia, he was the last to have officially exchanged with Robert Boulin, during a meeting relating in particular to the question of employment in Polynesia. “As he left, he greeted me with a smiling gesture, he didn’t seem at all like someone who was preoccupied. If that had been the case, he would surely have postponed our meeting. The atmosphere was not that of someone who had a project like that (commit suicide),” he told the judge, still according to France Inter. Gaston Flosse also assured that he did not believe in the suicide theory, but refuted having any information. “I did not participate in political discussions” of the RPR, he declared. « Grotesque », for the Boulin family lawyer, Marie Dosé. She sees there “a blatant lie” by Gaston Flosse, who “would be the only Frenchman to have never discussed the death of Robert Boulin, and moreover with his closest friends, Jacques Chirac (then re-elected party president) and Charles Pasqua? “, whom she suspects of having a key role in the affair.
The investigating judge also heard the former Minister of the Interior Claude Guéant, another figure of the French right accustomed to the courts. The person currently on trial in the case suspecting Libyan financing for Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007 was, in 1979, a technical advisor to Matignon. He explained to the judge that he had been informed “in the night” of the discovery of the body of Robert Boulin, while the official version at the time reported a discovery at 8:40 a.m. For the family, this inconsistency further reinforces the idea of a sponsored assassination.
