The REAL Day of the Jackal: How crazed murderer got here inside inches of killing Charles de Gaulle in 1962 plot – as Eddie Redmayne stars in Sky adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s traditional novel

It sounds like the plot of The Day of the Jackal: an expert assassin coming within a hair’s breadth of killing French president Charles de Gaulle.

But on August 22, 1962, that is exactly what happened, as de Gaulle and his wife were being whisked by car through Paris.

Georges Watin, who saw himself as the inspiration for Frederick Forsyth‘s Jackal and was known as ‘The Limping One’ due to a disability, was one of several right wing extremists who fired more than 150 bullets at the president’s car. 

Although the volley largely failed to penetrate the armoured Citroen, a bullet from Watin’s machine pistol came close to piercing de Gaulle’s heart and another whizzed by the politician’s head before ending up in the door frame of the car.

Despite claims to the contrary, Forsyth, now 86, insisted that Watin – who went on to mastermind another failed attack on de Gaulle after escaping to Switzerland – was not the inspiration for the near-flawless assassin in his debut novel.

But as a journalist working in Paris at the time, Forsyth had personally reported from the scene of the attack. 

He went on to incorporate it into the start of his 1971 novel, which he wrote in just 35 days. 

And now Sky’s TV adaptation of the story is proving a hit with viewers, as Eddie Redmayne portrays a modern-day Jackal. 

His target is a billionaire tech entrepreneur portrayed by Khalid Abdalla, whilst Forsyth’s intrepid French detective who ultimately foils the Jackal’s plot has been replaced by Lashana Lynch‘s MI6 agent Bianca Pullman. 

The 1962 attack was masterminded by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, a member of the far-right Secret Armed Organisation, which was known by its French acronym OAS.

They were incensed by De Gaulle’s decision to grant independence to Algeria after a brutal eight-year liberation war. 

The hit squad was made up of a mix of ‘pieds-noirs’ – Europeans born in Algeria during French rule which lasted from 1830 to 1962 – as well as former soldiers and students. The youngest was just 20 years old.

They opened fire first with a machine gun from a yellow van, then from a second vehicle parked further down the road. The attack lasted just 45 seconds.

There were eight impacts on the car body. One bullet went through to the back passenger seat, shattering the window by the president and his wife, who were showered in glass. 

‘They’re such bad shots!,’ De Gaulle later joked of the attack, which he used as a reason to boost the powers of his office. 

Yvonne’s immediate concern was for the jellied chicken she had in the boot of the car, having stocked up on the delicacy while in the capital.

The couple owed a debt of gratitude to the composure of their driver Francis Marroux, who had also been at the wheel a year earlier when the presidential car survived a first assassination attempt – later attributed to Bastien-Thiry – in the northeastern village of Pont-sur-Seine.

Marroux managed to keep control of the vehicle and sped off on two flat tyres under more fire.

De Gaulle’s son-in-law Alain de Boissieu also played a key role. Sitting in the front of the car he shouted ‘Get down, father!’ to France’s leader.

The unflappable De Gaulle, aged 71 at the time, initially acted as if nothing has happened. On arrival at Villacoublay military airport he reviewed the troops as usual.

But when boarding the plane with Yvonne he admitted to de Boissieu: ‘This time, it was a close shave!’

Jean-Noel Jeanneney, French historian and author of a book on the attack, said a combination of factors explained the failure of the 1962 hit, notably that none of those involved were ready to die for the cause.

Interviewed by AFP in 2012, one survivor of the cell blamed weapons jamming and shooters not being sufficiently trained.

News of the assassination attempt spread quickly. Later it emerged that a man driving in the opposite direction was hit on the hand by a stray bullet but only lightly injured.

The hunt for the culprits was swift and efficient, with one of the suspects spilling the beans on the whole operation after his arrest.

Bastien-Thiry became the last person to be executed by firing squad in France on March 11, 1963 at the age of 35.

Ever the strategist, De Gaulle harnessed public outrage over the attack to build support for a constitutional amendment to have the president elected by popular vote, rather than by an electoral college.

He later confided to one of his ministers that the attack came ‘at just the right time.’

But Watin – who was condemned to death in his absence – had escaped to Switzerland. 

There, he masterminded a plot the following year that would have seen de Gaulle get shot by a sniper as he carried out an inspection of the troops at the Ecole Militaire in Paris.

But police were tipped off and de Gaulle again was unhurt. 

Watin was tracked down to Switzerland but the authorities refused to extradite him. He was pardoned in 1968.

He later claimed that the 1962 car attack was an attempt at kidnapping de Gaulle so he could be put on trial and executed as a war criminal. 

Watin died of a heart attack in exile in Paraguay in 1994, aged 70. 

Forsyth said shortly after his death: ‘Watin said he thought he was the model for the Jackal, but he wasn’t. 

‘There were three people in all who believed it was them. Watin is actually mentioned in the Jackal, so he’s clearly a different character.’  

De Gaulle was first elected as French president in 1959, after leading Free France from London during the Second World War. 

He towered over French politics until 1969, when he resigned. He passed away unexpectedly the following year from an aneurysm.