Service d'Action Civique

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The SAC (

Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF) Gaullist party. The SAC was dissolved in 1982 under François Mitterrand's government, after a particularly gruesome multiple murder triggered by internal rivalries
.

Foundation during the Algerian War

The SAC was officially created as a 1901 law association on 4 January 1960, in the proclaimed aim of providing unconditional support to de Gaulle's policy. It was then officially directed by Pierre Debizet, a former Resistant, but its real leader was Jacques Foccart, in charge of the African policy of France for several decades.

The SAC recruited among the Gaullist movement, but also in the

anti-communist activities[citation needed]. Others famous gangsters of the time who were SAC members include Jo Attia [fr
] or Christian David ("le beau Serge"). Some of these criminals had taken part in the Resistance during the war, and even been deported, thus creating lasting links with future politicians, while others had been collaborationists.

The SAC always was independent from the Gaullist party itself, directly reporting to General de Gaulle through Foccart. The Parliamentary report published in 1982 talked of "God without the clergy" ("bon dieu sans les curés").

After de Gaulle's change of policy concerning the

Evian agreements on a cease-fire with the National Liberation Front
(FLN).

1960s: May 1968 and the "disappearance" of Mehdi Ben Barka

After this period, which saw the longtime Gaullists quit the organisation, the SAC began to recruit more and more from underworld groups. It then became involved in all sorts of shady moves and covert actions for the Gaullist party. It has been suspected of participating in 1965 in the "disappearance" in Paris of

Tricontinental Conference. Furthermore, Jacqueline Hémard [fr] and Ali Bourequat
, "disappeared" under Hassan II, have accused the SAC of financing itself by drug trade with Morocco.

During

Maoists and the so-called "Katangais". Continuing this "policy of order", the SAC created in 1969 the right-wing students' union Union Nationale Inter-universitaire
(UNI) in 1969 to counter the "leftist subversion" in the students' movement. Until 1976, the SAC supported the UNI in daily organisation, while many UNI members were also SAC members. Double membership of most activists continued after 1976, but the two organisations had distinct leadership.

Jacques Foccart called back Pierre Debizet to the head of the SAC during May 1968. Foccart excluded

robberies and handling, being a member of a criminal organisation (association de malfaiteurs), degradation of vehicles, use of stolen cheques, outrage to public morality (outrage aux bonnes mœurs)."[1]

Some SAC members have upheld a theory of the "two SAC" to defend themselves, alleging the coexistence, under the same appellation, of on one hand a group of staunchly right-wing Gaullist activists, often recruiting honourable persons (a magistrate, a certain number of workers' activists often linked to "

far right
movements, used for the most shady actions.

In the 1970s, journalist Patrice Chairoff published in Libération left-wing newspaper, founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and others, a plan of the SAC envisioning the internment of leftists in stadiums. The document was attributed to the Marseillese Gérard Kappé [fr], a lieutenant of Charles Pasqua who claimed it was a forgery.[2]

One of the main roles of the SAC, although not well known, was the internal

French justice
take care of it.

According to Daniele Ganser (2005), the SAC had Jacques Chirac as president in 1975. He later was twice prime minister before being elected president in 1995.[3]

1981 Auriol massacre and the dissolving of the SAC

Pierre Debizet, national leader of the SAC, arrived in Marseille in May 1981, troubled by local rivalries within his organisation. Jacques Massié, a police inspector and the local leader of the SAC, was accused by those who later would assassinate him of corruption — and worse, of contacts with the left. He was in reality a competent police officer, who was to take the leadership of the SAC in the Bouches-du-Rhône with the support of Debizet. Some time afterward, Massié and all of his family were massacred on the night of July 18, 1981 in what is known as the "Auriol massacre". His murderers were arrested a few weeks later. Pierre Debizet was interrogated by the police, but eventually released without charges. The five SAC members of the Auriol commando were sentenced on May 1, 1985 to between 15 years of prison and life-sentences; the mastermind behind inspector Massié's murder was never identified.[4]

The Auriol massacre took place soon after the

Socialist Party (PS). That election was the first victory of the left-wing since the 1958 establishment of the Fifth Republic by De Gaulle. The new parliamentary majority set up a parliamentary investigative commission, in which the opposition refused to sit. That Commission did not request the dissolving of the SAC, which the National Assembly nonetheless debated. The government disbanded the SAC in 1982,[5]
using a law which allows disbanding combat groups and private militias.

Successors of the SAC

After the 1982 dissolving of the SAC,

Centre national des indépendants et paysans
(CNIP) and of the PFN distinguished themselves.

Furthermore, Pierre Debizet created the

Mouvement initiative et liberté
(MIL, Movement of Initiative and Freedom) after the May 1981 presidential election, but before the dissolving of the SAC in 1982. Rather than a resurgence of the SAC, it was thus more a parallel structure of the UNI estudiantine trade-union, which was supposed to assist SAC activists in finding more mainstream, professional activities, by entering the estudiantine movement.

In the early 1980s, the SAC also had some front organisations, such as the

National Front (FN). Ante Gotovina, indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of war crimes, had worked for KO International Company.[6][7]

References

  1. ^ François Audigier, Histoire du SAC, p. 462
  2. Le Nouvel Observateur
    , 15 October 2005
  3. ^ See Daniele Ganser, Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Franck Cass, London, 2005, p.101
  4. Le Canard Enchaîné
    #4441, December 7, 2005
  5. ^ Décret n°82-670 du 3 août 1982 portant dissolution de l'association nommée « Service d'action civique » (SAC)
  6. RFI
    , 8 December 2005 (in French)
  7. ^ Le chauffeur de l’homme de la Question, L'Humanité, 10 December 2005 (in French)

In popular culture

Bibliography

  • Report from the Parliamentary Commission on the SAC, Editions Alain Moreau, 1982
  • François Audigier, Histoire du SAC, la part d'ombre du gaullisme, Stock, 2003
  • Alex Panzani, La tuerie d'Auriol, J'ai lu, Crimes et enquètes.
  • Benjamin Biale, "Le service d'action civique : 1958-1968.", Mémoire IEP Aix-en-Provence 1997
  • Pierre Péan L'Homme de l'ombre: éléments d'enquête autour de Jacques Foccart, l'homme le plus mystérieux et le plus puissant de la Ve République, Fayard, 1990.

See also

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