Ministry of the Interior of France

The Ministry of the Interior of France is the political and operational hub of the French Government’s response to the threat against Charles de Gaulle. In the novel, its importance lies not simply in its command of police resources but in the contradiction it must manage: the state has to find The Jackal and protect the President, yet cannot publicly acknowledge either the plot or the extraordinary measures it provokes. Roger Frey receives the warning, conveys it to the President, and assembles senior officials to turn an uncertain report into a covert national investigation.

The warning at Place Beauvau

The Ministry’s response begins in Frey’s office, where he studies Colonel Rolland’s report after hearing the assessment of Jean Ducret, head of the President’s personal security corps. The setting gives the institution a composed public face: from Frey’s window, traffic streams through the sunlit courtyard and Place Beauvau, guided by a policeman whose command of five converging flows seems to offer an image of order. Yet the report has unsettled the Minister. Ducret is an expert in protecting a single life against assassination, and six known plots against the President have already either failed in execution or been stopped during preparation. Frey accepts that Rolland’s latest warning cannot be dismissed.

The stakes reach beyond the President’s immediate safety. Frey understands the report as a threat to the stability of France itself: in the political conditions of 1963, he fears that de Gaulle’s death could be followed by a coup and civil war. He therefore decides that the President must be told. After meeting him at the Élysée Palace, Frey returns to the Ministry with a firm restriction on how the affair may be handled. The danger is grave, but the response must not make it public.

Secrecy as policy and constraint

Frey explains the President’s position to Alexandre Sanguinetti, his chief of personal staff, who has overseen much of the detailed work of the state security forces. Sanguinetti objects that protecting de Gaulle while leaving his public appearances unchanged seems impossible. Frey distinguishes between acting and acting publicly: the assassination investigation must proceed in secret, and the suspected assassin must be identified and tracked without exposing the operation.

That distinction governs the Ministry’s subsequent work. Frey rules out publicity, a nationwide public search, or any signal beyond a small circle that something is wrong. The President fears that disclosure would invite press attention and foreign ridicule, while visible precautions could make it appear that he was hiding from one foreigner. He also insists on continuing his public programme. The Ministry is thus charged with preventing an attack without allowing its own defensive preparations to become evidence that the attack is anticipated.

Frey convenes fourteen men in the Ministry’s conference room, bringing together senior representatives of the police, intelligence, presidential security, and public-order apparatus. Among them are Sanguinetti, General Guibaud, Rolland, Ducret, Colonel Saint-Clair de Villauban, and Maurice Bouvier, head of the Criminal Investigation Brigade. Each has Rolland’s report. Frey requires absolute silence, makes clear that the affair demands immediate personal attention from the departmental chiefs, and limits delegation to tasks that do not disclose why they are needed. The Ministry’s role is therefore coordinative: it draws disparate services into one investigation while controlling who knows its purpose.

Creating a central investigation

Frey assigns Claude Lebel the task of leading the hunt. Lebel learns that he will establish his own office, have access to the information and resources of the represented organizations, and face no limits on expenditure. The authority is exceptional, but it is granted inside a system defined by secrecy. Bouvier is present as Lebel’s chief, and Lucien Caron becomes his assistant; the Ministry’s directive gives the investigation a centre from which requests can move across departmental boundaries.

Lebel’s first instructions turn that authority into working arrangements. Caron is to become his sole assistant and secretary, while the ordinary secretary is to be removed from the office so that the secret remains contained. A camp bed, washing and shaving supplies, and a coffee percolator are brought in; ten outside telephone lines and a permanently assigned operator are requested. The office is organized for sustained work, not routine administration. A circular memorandum is prepared to establish Caron’s authority to request from department chiefs the facilities Lebel himself could demand. In this way, the Ministry’s high-level order becomes a practical network of access, communications, and personal responsibility.

The investigation also depends on discreet cooperation beyond France. Lebel contacts senior foreign crime investigators over secure, high-frequency lines, presenting the request as a preliminary tip-off rather than a formal enquiry between police forces. At first, he can offer little: no confirmed name, only a poor description, and the possibility that the unknown man is a professional political assassin. The hesitation of his foreign counterparts reflects a real weakness in the case. The Ministry has immense resources at its disposal, but it must begin with fragmentary intelligence and cannot openly explain why the enquiry matters.

From records to field operations

As the investigation develops, the Ministry’s reach is visible in the way scattered records become leads. French archives are searched again under the name Alexander James Quentin Duggan. A card shows that he entered France from Brussels on July 22; a passenger report places him on a train leaving Paris for Brussels on July 31. A hotel registration, with a passport number matching information received from London, places him near the Place de la Madeleine between those dates. Lebel chooses a discreet visit to the hotel proprietor over an immediate raid, gathering information without waking the other guests. The episode shows how the case advances through ordinary records and measured enquiries, rather than through a single dramatic discovery.

When a car is found, Lebel directs Commissaire Valentin to send a strong team to Ussel and begin a square search centred on the vehicle. Officers are to question farmers, village shops and cafés, hotels, and woodcutters’ shelters, looking for a tall, well-dressed Englishman carrying three suitcases and a handgrip, possibly looking as though he has slept rough. At the same time, the Ministry’s secrecy policy shapes the public explanation: local reporters are to be distracted with a story about a car crash and a possibly dazed occupant. Valentin is told not to approach the suspect if he is found, but to surround him and hold him until Lebel arrives. The instructions couple broad deployment with caution; discovery must not turn into an uncontrolled confrontation or a public alarm.

Security without public retreat

The Ministry’s coordination continues into preparations for the Paris Liberation Day ceremonies. Steel barriers are to be installed hours in advance, the enclosed areas searched—including the sewers—and nearby houses and flats checked. Armed observers will watch the surrounding rooftops. Police are to occupy even the cornices and spires of Notre-Dame, while clergy, acolytes, choirboys, and police officers themselves are searched or given special identification badges to frustrate disguise. Bulletproof windows are secretly fitted to the President’s Citroën, and the driver is instructed to travel faster than usual. Extra-tall officers are added to the entourage in the hope of screening de Gaulle without his noticing.

These precautions do not resolve the central difficulty. Lebel tells Frey that the barriers and searches may seem overwhelming, but The Jackal has reached France with a gun despite betrayal and pursuit by two leading police forces. The Ministry can change the conditions around the ceremonies; it cannot be certain how the assassin will get through them. Lebel’s remaining proposal is to visit the events himself and keep watch. The institution’s significance lies in that unresolved balance: its departments can gather records, mobilize personnel, and harden the President’s surroundings, but secrecy and an opponent’s adaptability leave the final outcome dependent on recognition in the crowd.