Word: tixier
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Defense Attorney Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, a foxy ultrarightist who defended S.A.O. Leader Raoul Salan, tried desperately to get the trial postponed. His reason was obvious: the latest S.A.O. ambush,* which almost killed De Gaulle last month, had destroyed any current of sympathy for the defendants...
...Tixier's ace card was his claim that the assassination attempt was actually a bidon (phony) plot cooked up by Gaullist officials to scare the President into taking greater security precautions. But Tixier was made to look so ridiculous in trying to prove the charge that he dropped this strategy. Even Tixier's defense witnesses (though mostly staunch advocates of Algerie francaise) had little sympathy for the five. Snapped General Fernand Gam-biez: "It is because of maneuvers of men like them that Algerie francaise was lost...
...prosecution demanded death for Manoury and hefty prison sentences for his accomplices. But Tixier made a brilliant plea. He emphasized that no one had been killed. Why, then, should Manoury die when Salan, who was responsible "for 1,800 murders, 4,700 people wounded, and 12,000 armed attacks," got only life imprisonment? He recalled that France has traditionally been lenient toward political assassins since the public revulsion over the fate of Damiens, Louis XV's valet, who was tortured and killed after grazing his master with a knife during an unsuccessful attempt on his life...
...jury deliberated 77 minutes. Despite the prosecution's plea for stiff sentences to show "that there are still laws in France and still men in Troyes," the verdict was mild: 20 years for Manoury, 15 each for De Villemandy, Rouviere and Belvisi, and ten for Barbance. Said Tixier: "Damiens helped us very much indeed...
...courtroom, the verdict was tumultuously received. Right-wing standees in the court yelled, howled, clapped their hands. Someone began singing the Marseillaise, and Lawyer Tixier-Vignancour stiffened to attention, bellowing out the chorus. Salan was visited in prison afterward by his 16-year-old daughter, Dominique, and told her: "I lived those last minutes of the trial in a dream. Then I saw all those people, so still and quiet all afternoon, suddenly jump up and shout and sing the Marseillaise. Magnificent...