École Militaire assassination plot

The École Militaire assassination plot was a thwarted attempt to kill Charles de Gaulle as he arrived for a military ceremony in Paris. Discovered on February 14, the plan called for a sniper to shoot him in the back as he entered the hall the next day. Three alleged participants were arrested and a scoped rifle was found, but the proposed trigger-man, Georges Watin, escaped. The plot’s exposure sharpened the political pressure for a forceful response to the OAS and its repeated threats against the President.

Causes and Setting

The plot emerged amid a widening OAS campaign against Gaullist France. Its methods reached beyond violence: Antoine Argoud had arranged a series of interviews for Georges Bidault, head of the National Resistance Council, the OAS’s political wing, so that the organization’s opposition to Charles de Gaulle could be presented in more respectable terms across Western Europe. At the same time, plastic bombs were exploding in cinemas and cafés around France. The French Government was alarmed both by these attacks and by the propaganda operation’s success.

Against that backdrop, another assassination plan was uncovered on February 14. Charles de Gaulle was due to lecture at the École Militaire on the Champ de Mars the following day. The choice of a public, scheduled appearance gave the plot a precise opportunity: the attack was to take place as he entered the hall, before the military ceremony began.

The Plan and Its Exposure

The proposed shooter was to be concealed among the eaves of a neighboring block and fire at Charles de Gaulle from behind as he entered. The intended position turned the approach to the hall into the moment of greatest danger. The plan was disrupted before the scheduled appearance, and a rifle fitted with a sniper scope was discovered at Robert Poinard’s flat.

Those later tried in connection with the plot were Jean Bichon, artillery captain Robert Poinard, and Madame Paule Rousselet de Lilac, an English-language teacher at the Military Academy. Georges Watin was supposed to act as the trigger-man, but he escaped once again. At the later trial, it was stated that the conspirators had consulted Warrant Officer Marius Tho about getting Watin and his weapon into the Academy; Tho went directly to the police. The arrests and recovered rifle exposed a concrete plan, while Watin’s escape left its intended gunman beyond their grasp.

The Ceremony and the Government’s Response

Charles de Gaulle went ahead with the military ceremony at the appointed time on February 15. He did so in an armored car, a concession to the threat that he accepted with marked reluctance. The decision preserved his public schedule while making the danger visible in the altered arrangements around his appearance.

The plot was described as strikingly amateurish, but its failure did not make it inconsequential. It angered Charles de Gaulle. The following day he summoned Interior Minister Roger Frey, struck the table, and insisted that the assassination campaign had gone far enough. The episode thus moved beyond an intercepted conspiracy: it reinforced the demand for a deterrent response and placed further pressure on the authorities to act against senior OAS figures.

Significance in the Assassination Campaign

The École Militaire plot was one of several threats that made the danger to Charles de Gaulle seem immediate rather than abstract. Its exposed preparations—a specific public engagement, a concealed firing position, and a scoped rifle—showed how the President’s routine appearances could be turned into opportunities for attack. Yet the plan’s failure also demonstrated how information reaching the police could break an operation before the target entered its danger zone.

In the wider narrative, the incident belongs to the escalating conflict between the OAS and the Gaullist state, not to the later Jackal operation itself. The authorities’ response to this failed attempt helps explain the severe political atmosphere in which subsequent threats were assessed: another plot against Charles de Gaulle could provoke demands for extraordinary action, even when its perpetrators and methods differed.