Rue du Petit Clamart

“C’est tangent!” Charles de Gaulle muttered, his voice tight with adrenaline as his car screeched away from the hail of bullets. It was a close call on Rue du Petit Clamart, a seemingly ordinary street in the Parisian suburb of Clamart, but now forever etched in history as the site of a daring assassination attempt. Rue du Petit Clamart, despite its unassuming appearance, was the scene of an event that could have drastically altered the course of French history. On the evening of August 22nd, 1962, President de Gaulle’s motorcade was ambushed here by a group of OAS operatives, fiercely opposed to his decision to grant Algeria independence. The attack, meticulously planned by Lieutenant-Colonel Jean Bastien-Thiry, involved twelve men, a barrage of bullets and a desperate escape. Imagine the scene: de Gaulle’s Citroën DS, riddled with fourteen bullet holes, tires shredded, careening down Rue du Petit Clamart as the president and his wife ducked for cover. The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder and the echoes of gunfire. Miraculously, no one in the car was injured. Despite the blown-out tires, the sturdy DS sped away, thanks in part to de Gaulle’s son-in-law, Colonel Alain de Boissieu, urging the driver to accelerate. It was a chillingly close call, a moment that de Gaulle himself later described with his characteristic stoicism as “a close shave.” The Rue du Petit Clamart attack, codenamed Operation Charlotte Corday, exposed the deep divisions within French society at the time. It also marked the last political execution in France, as Bastien-Thiry was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad the following year. Today, Rue du Petit Clamart stands as a silent witness to this dramatic historical event. Although the street itself may not appear remarkable, the echoes of that fateful evening still resonate. It’s a reminder of the fragility of power, the volatility of political landscapes and the indelible mark that seemingly ordinary places can bear in the face of extraordinary events.