Jacques Foccart

Central French spook and deep politician for several decades

Jacques Foccart   (spook, deep politician)
Born	31 August 1913
Died	19 March 1997 (Age 83)
Nationality	French
Interests	Françafrique
French spook and deep politician, best known as a chief adviser to French presidents on African affairs.

Jacques Foccart was a French spook and deep politician, best known as a chief adviser to French presidents on African affairs. He was also a co-founder of the Gaullist intelligence service Service d'Action Civique (SAC) in 1959 with Charles Pasqua, which specialized in covert operations in Africa, including countless coups, assassinations and disappearances.

From 1960 to 1974, Foccart was Secretary-General for African and Malagasy Affairs under Presidents Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, and was pivotal in maintaining France's sphere of influence in sub-Saharan Africa (or Françafrique) by putting in place a series of cooperation accords with individual African countries and building a dense web of personal networks that underpinned the informal and family-like relationships between French and African leaders. After de Gaulle, Foccart was seen as the most influential man of the Fifth Republic, and he retained his functions during Georges Pompidou's presidency (1969–74).

In 1974 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing replaced Foccart with the young deputy whom he had himself trained. He was then rehabilitated in 1986 by the new Prime minister Jacques Chirac as an adviser on African affairs for the two years of "cohabitation" with socialist president François Mitterrand. When Chirac finally gained the presidency in 1995, the 81-year-old Foccart was brought back to the Elysée palace as an advisor. He died in 1997.

Domestic activities

However, his role was not limited to Africa, as he was also charged by De Gaulle with the secret services and with the following of the elections, in particular concerning the choice of the candidates during the 1960s. The SAC helped him for those shady missions. Foccart also admitted in Foccart Parle that relations with the SDECE intelligence agency were his concerns. General de Gaulle asked Foccart to reorganize the SDECE (in view of the unreliability of both the armed forces and the intelligence agencies by the movement for Algerie Francaise), and he organized the (counter)-terror groups, the barbouzes.

With François de Grossouvre, Jacques Foccart also helped to create the Department Protection Security (DPS), security organization of the far-right Front National party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Foccart was in contact with Monique Garnier-Lançon.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Pierre Péan	“I remember that Jacques Foccart told me that the only person he was physically afraid of, was Charles Pasqua”	Pierre Péan	2017

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