The Auriol massacre

 The Auriol massacre(assassination)

Description	A Gaullist paramilitary milita on the hunt for a suspected traitor kills his family of 6, before getting caught.

The Auriol massacre is the assassination of six people on the night of July 18 to 19, 1981 in Auriol (Bouches-du-Rhône) in the family country house of Jacques Massié, head of the local section of the Civic Action Service ( SAC) from Marseille. The latter was suspected by his deputy of wanting to betray them by handing over the local SAC files to leftist movements. This killing takes place in a context of extreme anti-Communist paranoia. Jacques Massié, his wife, his 7-year-old son, his parents-in-law and his brother-in-law are killed. This crime moves France and becomes a matter of state. At the request of the President, François Mitterrand, the government dissolved the SAC on August 3, 1982.

The Facts

Jacques Massié, 41, is a police brigadier assigned to Marseille. Residing in an old Provencal country house in Auriol, he lives there with his wife Marie-Dominique, 34 years old and his son Alexandre, 7 years old. But the policeman is also known for being the head of the Bouches-du-Rhône section of the Civic Action Service (SAC), a Gaullist paramilitary network created by Jacques Foccart. The arrival of the left to power in 1981 feeds great fears, aggravated by strong internal rivalries. Jean-Joseph Maria, Massié's deputy in the service of the SAC, suspects the latter of treason and various embezzlements (in particular of diverting the contributions of members of the SAC shooting club, or of extorting the bars of Marseille and Toulon on behalf of the SAC, which allows him to pay for his red Ferrari and his country house), and ends up convincing the other members to exclude Massié. In addition, the brigadier, who has obtained a place at the school of police inspectors thanks to his network of acquaintances ,continues his repeated absences. Jean-Joseph Maria fears that Massié will end up handing over his confidential documents to the leftist movements. These rumors will lead to the massacre of an entire family.

First attempted murder

On Saturday April 25, 1981, Jacques Massié has just had an interview with his successor at the head of the local SAC. He was traveling in his vehicle when he was the victim of several shots fired by two strangers on a motorcycle. He emerges unscathed from this attempted murder and immediately warns his colleagues, stating that he strongly suspects his deputy at the SAC, Jean-Joseph Maria, manager of a painting company, and one of his faithful companions, Lionel Collard, former parachutist of the Foreign Legion who became a worker at a Marseilles factory. He also gives investigators a list with the names and addresses of members of the organization.

After this failure, Maria and Collard recruit a team and instruct it to monitor Massié's comings and goings with the aim of kidnapping him, recovering sensitive files probably stored in the family house and putting an end to the Massié problem. At the same time, Marie-Dominique Massié asks her son's school to redouble his vigilance.

The Auriol massacre

Om Saturday July 18, 1981, Jacques Massié, his wife and his young son are present at the family country house located in La Douronne. He also receives his in-laws, as well as his brother-in-law, Georges Ferrarini. Around 3 p.m., Massié left the house by borrowing his brother-in-law's vehicle, out of general caution, and left his own parked for all to see. It is the moment that a commando of six masked and armed criminals led by Collard chooses to invade the house, before noticing the absence of their target and especially the presence of five inconvenient witnesses. The commando then decides to wait for Massié's return by keeping the hostages tied up on the first floor in one of the bedrooms.

Three hours pass, and the criminals grow impatient. Upstairs, the young boy of seven years and his mother have little difficulty in recognizing the one who keeps them, dressed up by a simple surgeon's mask: Jean-Bruno Finochietti, 31, a teacher who previously gave lessons to the young boy. It is a fatal recognition, because at 6 p.m. Collard decides that everyone must be executed. One by one, the members of the Massié family have to go down the stairs and are strangled with a cord or killed with bladed weapons. Aware of the massacre that is taking place, Marie-Dominique Massié implores Finochietti to spare her son, in vain. The latter, asleep, is carried by Finochietti to another squad member, Ange Poletti, who hits him several times with a poker in the skull. But the child is doesn't die easily. Finochietti finishes him off with several stab wounds. The bodies are then transported to an abandoned mine near the town of Mayons.

Jacques Massié is finally killed when he returns to his home at around 3 a.m., not imagining what have happened to his family. The criminals start a fire to cover up the evidence and flee, taking the infamous sensitive files.

Investigation

First findings

On Sunday July 19, 1981, the neighbors discover a house half-consumed by fire, a devastated interior and traces of blood. Marina Massié, Jacques Massié's sister, also arrives at the country house where a family meal is planned and notices the fire. Marina first goes to the local hospital and then decides to report the facts to the gendarmerie.

At once, the gendarmes quickly understood that they were at the scene of a crime: the fire was started with candles placed under the curtains of the stairs leading to the first floor, where surgeon masks were discovered on a bed, with ties, strings and bloodstained clothes. Objects that have not burned are placed under seal and sent to the laboratory for analysis. The investigators found the Mercedes of the parents-in-law 300 m from the house. In the trunk, a shoe. All around, objects are scattered: a signet ring, a pair of glasses, a lighter, etc. as if someone had lost these items while trying to escape. The trail ends at a huge bloodstain on a sidewalk, at the very spot where Jacques Massié was caught and stabbed by Finochietti.

Placed under the authority of the examining magistrate Françoise Llaurens-Gérin on the grounds of suspected kidnappings and intentional homicides, the investigation was entrusted to the regional service of the judicial police of Marseille.

Quick arrests and first confessions

The first hearings were conducted with witnesses and relatives of the Massié on July 19, and immediately orient the investigation towards the SAC, and the names of Maria, Collard and Finochietti already mentioned. The latter are immediately questioned. Maria and Collard resist the questions and confrontations well, but the nervous schoolteacher breaks down and confesses the crimes after forty hours in police custody, after being confronted with of the results of the progress of the investigation: in the laboratory, the analysis of a soft drink bottle reveals the presence of his fingerprints. He confesses his participation in six murders but refuses to give names and makes a drawing which he calls: On the black screen of my sleepless nights. The faces are blackened there and the teacher designates his accomplices by letters of the alphabet: A, B, C and D. By the letter Z, he designates the sponsor, and speaks of a direct order "from up high".

Based on information from Finochietti, the body of Jacques Massié was discovered, and exhumed on July 22.

On July 30, Massoni designated a former mine as the place where the bodies of other members of the Massié family were hidden, more than ten days after the massacre.

Expanded investigation

The investigating judge issues an order to the investigators, and new arrests take place in the SAC community in Marseille but also at the national office. At the same time, the investigation into the personality and lifestyle of Jacques Massié causes confusion. At the head of the local SAC, he is indeed the source of many embezzlements, not for the movement, but for his own benefit, which led to his downfall.

Exceptional resources are deployed. The three minor squad members (Didier Campana, Ange Poletti and Jean-Jacques Massoni) are more talkative: they recognize their participation in the operation and reveal the gray areas. On July 24, the secretary general of the SAC, Pierre Debizet, and the treasurer, Gérard Daury, were arrested and placed in pre-trial detention. Debizet's schedule then reveals a trip to Marseille on May 5, 1981 and a meeting with local members of the SAC. He is said to have declared that the question of the "Massié problem" must "be settled". Finochietti, Campana, Poletti and Massoni plead guilty. Maria and Collard remain their position of innocence.

Epilogue

Trial

At the assizes trial in May 1985, Finochietti, Campana, Poletti and Massoni plead guilty. Maria and Collard, on the contrary, denied any participation.

Jean-Joseph Maria, Lionel Collard and Ange Poletti were sentenced to life imprisonment, Jean-Bruno Finochietti and Didier Campana to twenty years in prison, and Jean-François Massoni to fifteen years. All have by now (2010) been released. Pierre Debizet, secretary general of the SAC, originally indicted, benefited, after appeal, from a dismissal rendered by a Paris court. He died in May 1996.

Political dimension

Through the outburst of violence and the political implications of these assassinations, the affair made a big splash in the French press in the early 1980s. It generally highlighted the persistence of various extremist paramilitary organizations and the benevolent neglect of the state apparatus towards them for two decades. The affairlead to the dissolution of the SAC by President François Mitterrand on August 3, 1982. A parliamentary commission of inquiry (only composed of members of the left-wing majority, the right having refused to sit there) was set up immediately after the elections, but decided not to ask for the dissolution of the SAC. This question was, however, addressed by Parliament, which voted for dissolution.

François Mitterrand's point of view

In his memoirs as an advisor to François Mitterrand, Jacques Attali reports a private conversation during which the President confided in him that he was affected by this event:

“François Mitterrand said: These people are still very powerful. They will try to destabilize the regime. What happened to Salvador Allende can happen to me. I know it." He tells me, without details, that he received threats after May 10. One day, during a trip to the provinces, someone slips a message into his hand to prove that he can be assassinated, when the time comes, without difficulty.”
Jacques Attali

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