Marcel Bigeard, born February 14, 1916 in Toul and died June 18, 2010 in the same city, was a French soldier and politician. He has the distinction of having been called up as a non-commissioned man, 2nd class, in 1936 and of having ended his military career in 1976 as a four-star general officer (general of the army corps). General Bigeard was for a long time the most decorated living French soldier. Former resistant, his name remains associated with the wars of defense of the French colonies (Indochina, Algeria). A foundation bearing his name was created on June 9, 2011.
Family origins
Marcel-Maurice Bigeard was the son of Charles Bigeard (1880-1948), a switchman at the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Est and of Marie-Sophie Ponsot (1880-1964).
The January 6, 1942, he married in Nice his childhood friend, Gabrielle Grandemange (Toul, December 5, 1919 - July 4, 20111). They marry during the war between the escape of Marcel Bigeard from Germany, and before his departure to be parachuted into the maquis. In each of his speeches or his books, Marcel Bigeard regularly quoted “
Gaby, his great and only love”. Their only child, Marie-France, was born on February 13, 1946. Gaby Bigeard died on July 4, 2011 in Toul following a long illness.
Military career
Pre-war
After working for six years at Société Générale, where he rose through the ranks (courier, then portfolio department, coupon department, securities department), while practicing boxing, Marcel Bigeard did his military service in Haguenau at
within the 23rd fortress infantry regiment. Incorporated as a private second class in September 1936, master corporal, he was released from his military obligations with the rank of reserve sergeant in September 1938.
World War II
Six months after his release, faced with the imminence of the conflict, he was recalled on March 22, 1939 to the 23rd fortress infantry regiment and was promoted to the rank of sergeant.
In September 1939 , thanks to the arrival of reservists, the battalions of the 23rd RIF each served as a nucleus for the creation of new "mobilization" fortress infantry regiments, Bigeard was assigned to the 79th fortress infantry regiment in the sub-sector Fortified Hoffen of the Maginot Line4. Volunteer for the Freikorps, he took the lead of a combat group in Trimbach in Alsace and quickly became a staff sergeant then adjutant at the age of 24.
June 25, 1940, he was taken prisoner and spent 18 months in Stalag 12A in Limburg, Germany. It was on his third attempt, on November 11, 19415, that he managed to escape and reach the free zone.
Volunteer for the AOF, he was assigned in February 1942 to the Bandia camp near Thiès in Senegal, in a regiment of Senegalese riflemen of the Armistice Army. Appointed second lieutenant in October 1943, he was directed with his regiment to Meknes in Morocco.
Recruited as a paratrooper of the French Army of the Liberation, he trained with the British commandos, at the Club des Pins near Algiers for three months and then was assigned with the fictitious rank of battalion commander at the General Directorate of Special Services. With the title of departmental military delegate,
commander Aube parachuted into the Ariège on August 8, 1944 with three comrades in order to supervise the action of the French interior Resistance. When the department was liberated on August 22, 1944, Franco-Spanish losses were 44 killed and wounded, while German losses were 1,420 prisoners and 230 killed and wounded.
At the beginning of 1945, Bigeard created and then directed for a semester the regional school of executives in Pyla, near Bordeaux, intended to train officers from the French forces of the interior. Decorated with the Legion of Honor and the distinguished
British Service Order for his actions in Ariège, Bigeard was appointed active captain in June 1945.
Indochina War
In mid-1945, Captain Bigeard was given command of the 6th Company of the 23rd Colonial Infantry Regiment in Villingen, Germany. Designated to participate in the expeditionary force in Indochina, the regiment landed in Saigon on October 25, 1945 and participated until March 1946 in
pacification operations in Cochinchina.
It was at this time that he began to be given the nickname "Bruno", which is his radio call sign.
On March 8, 1946, a detachment from the 2nd DB and one from the 9th DIC , of which
the 23eRIC was a member, landed at Haiphong in Tonkin.
On July 1, 1946, Bigeard left the 23e RIC and formed at Thuan Chau, in the east of Dien Bien Phu, a unit made up of four commandos of 25 volunteers each within the Thai autonomous battalion of Lieutenant-Colonel Quilichini. When his men returned to France in mid-October 1946, he took command of the 3rd company, made up of around 400 men. He left Indochina on September 17, 1947 and landed three days later at Orly.
Voluntary for a second stay in Indochina, Bigeard was assigned on February 1, 1948 to the 3rd Colonial Battalion of Parachute Commandos, under the orders of Commander Ayrolles, in Saint-Brieuc and took command of Parachute Commando Group No. 2. When the 3epara landed in Saigon in November 1948, Bigeard, who did not get along with his superior, managed to detach his group to the Amarante detachment of Commander Romain-Desfossé in Haiphong.
On October 1, 1949, Bigeard set up the 3rd Thai battalion at Son La, comprising 2,530 men divided into five regular companies and nine companies of civil guards and military auxiliaries.
Relieved of his command following a disagreement with the provincial administrator, Bigeard was transferred to Haïduong and on 5 April 1950 took command of the Indochinese marching battalion which received, in August, the flag of the 1st regiment of Tonkinese skirmishers decorated with the Croix de Guerre with palm. On November 12, 1950, Bigeard embarked in Saigon on the liner La Marseillaise and once again left Indochina.
In the spring of 1951, Bigeard was assigned to Vannes in the colonial demi-brigade of Colonel Gilles and was given the passing battalion. In September 1951, he was given command of the 6th Battalion of Colonial Paratroopers in Saint-Brieuc. He had the rank of battalion commander in January 1952.
On July 28, 1952, Bigeard, at the head of the 6th BPC, landed in Haiphong for a third stay in Indochina and took up residence in Hanoi . On October 16, 1952, the battalion was parachuted onto Tu Lê 15 and faced the regiments of the Viet Minh 308 and 312 divisions for eight days. The unit again distinguished itself during the battle of Na San (parachuting in the Ban Som basin on December 27, 1952), during Operation Hirondelle over Lang Son on July 17, 1953 and during Operation Castor over Dien Bien Phu on November 20, 1953.
On December 31, 1953, he took command of GAP n°416, consisting
of II/1erRCP and 6eBPC, and intervened in middle Laos between Thakhek and Savannakhet towards which two Viet Minh divisions were heading.
Parachuted on March 16, 1954, while the fate of the battle of Dien Bien Phu was sealed, Commander Bigeard was named lieutenant-colonel during the fighting and became one of the heroes of the basin by fighting with his battalion on the support points Eliane 1 and 2, but especially by co-directing the intervention troops of the camp
entrenched with Colonel Langlais.
Lieutenant-Colonel Marcel Bigeard was taken prisoner on May 7, 1954 when the camp fell. Released four months later, he left Indochina for good on September 25, 1954.
War in Algeria
On October 25, 1955, Bigeard took command of the 3eBPC in the region of Constantine in Algeria. On February 21, 1956, the battalion, which in the meantime became the 3eRPC, carried out the first helicopter operation in history during Operation 744 in Kabylie. This method was used again in March 1956 to capture deserters from the 3rd? company of the 3rd RTA.
June 16, 1956, in the Nemenchas, Bigeard, which attacked the rebels, was seriously injured by a bullet in the chest. Repatriated to France, he was decorated on July 14, 1956 by President Coty and received the plaque of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. Back in Algeria, he escaped an attack on September 5 and was wounded by two bullets in the humerus and one in the liver.
Battle of Algiers
At the beginning of 1957, the regiment took part in General Massu's 10th DP in the Battle of Algiers. The mission of the paratroopers is to bring security back to the city and neutralize the FLN cells of Larbi Ben M'hidi18, which organized several series of bomb attacks against civilians in various public places in Algiers between the autumn 1956 and summer 1957.
In March 1957, the 3rd ?RPC went to the mountains south of Blida and took part in operations Atlas and Agounnenda. During the summer, the 3epara arrested 90% of the FLN19 fighters, including Taleb Abderrahmane, the chemist of the Milk Bar, Cafeteria and Otomatic attacks.
The regiment relieved the 1st RCP in July 1957 in Algiers. The capture of Hassène Guandriche alias Zerrouk, Deputy Head of Region II of the Autonomous Zone of Algiers returned by the GRE, resulted in the neutralization of the two leaders of Zone 2, Mourad and Ramel, but especially that of Ali la Point and capture of Yacef Saadi,
FLN military leader of the autonomous zone of Algiers. Appointed colonel in January 1958, he led the 3rd RPC which with others took part in the “Battle of the Borders” (January-June). On April 1, Colonel Trinquier replaced him at the head of the 3rd RPC. He
returned to Paris where Chaban-Delmas, Minister of the Armed Forces, asked him to create a training center for executives which opened at the end of April near Philippeville. Bigeard did not take part in the events of May 13, 1958, but in an interview with Paris-Presse he confided his feelings to Jean Lartéguy, which earned him the wrath of General Salan and his return to France.
After four months spent in Toul, Bigeard left again for Algeria and took command of the Saida sector in Oranie on January 25, 195921. from DCA, an artillery regiment, two mobile groups of auxiliaries, a few reconnaissance planes and two helicopters.
Following a meeting with De Gaulle on August 27, 1959, he saw himself entrust on December 1 the command of the Ain-Sefra sector, i.e. a workforce of 15,000 men. was taken up by the press and the radio and which cost him his command despite the intervention of General Gambiez.
He was later accused of having practiced torture during the Algerian war by former members of the FLN, by the left, but also by veterans who fought at his side, which he always denied (see The Intimate Enemy, documentary in which Paul Aussaresses notably testifies). The so-called “Bigeard shrimp” technique would have been used, but remains denied by the person concerned. Declaring that in the context of war torture was a "necessary evil", while claiming to have never participated in it.
End of wartime commitment:After 1960
From July 1960 to January 1963, Bigeard took command of the 6eRIAOM in Bouar in the Central African Republic.
After a brief stint at the War College from June 1963 to June 1964, he took command of the 25th Parachute Brigade in Pau on August 31, 1964, then that of the 20th Parachute Brigade in Toulouse. He rose to the rank of brigadier general on August 1, 1967.
After an interview with General de Gaulle, he was appointed to the post of senior commander of the land forces29 in Senegal and joined Dakar on February 7. 1968.
In July 1970, Bigeard returned to Paris and was assigned to the CEMAT staff for ten months.
On August 7, 1971, he took the command of the French forces present in the Indian Ocean30 in Tananarive and obtained its third star on December 1, 197131. Following the demonstrations which shook Madagascar in May 1972 and which led to the departure of its president Philibert Tsiranana and his replacement by General Gabriel Ramanantsoa, he left Madagascar on July 31, 1973 with all the French forces in the sector.
On his return to France, he became from September 1973 to February 1974 the second deputy to the military governor of Paris. Promoted to general of the army on March 1, 1974, he took command of the 4th Military Region in Bordeaux, i.e. 40,000 men, including 10,000 paratroopers.
Summoned by the Élysée, he met on January 30, 1975 President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing who offered him the post of Secretary of State for Defense attached to Minister Yvon Bourges. He held this position from February 1975 to August 1976, when he submitted his resignation.
Political life
After a short retirement in Toul and following the accidental death of the UDF candidate, he stood for election and became deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle34 from 1978 to 1981. During this first legislature, he also served as president of the defense committee. He was re-elected in the first round in June 1981 then by proportional representation in March 198636. In 1988, following the dissolution of the assembly, he was finally beaten by the socialist candidate by 411 votes.
He then retired to his house in Toul, where he wrote books on his military career and offered his thoughts on the evolution of France. Some time before his death, he declared:“I am the last of the glorious idiots”38. He died at his home in Toul on June 18, 201039 at the age of 94. His funeral took place in the cathedral of Toul on June 21, 40.
Philosophies
Tribute to the adversary
Bigeard has often shown his admiration and sympathy for the opponent who fights well. He has always been able to distinguish the good professional and has never spared him his esteem. We saw it in Indochina, and in particular in Diên Biên Phu, awarding certificates of merit to the Viets, we will see it in Algeria. It should be noted that in his book of memories For a Plot of Glory, he quotes at length, by name, those who showed real qualities as a soldier, valour, courage, speed of maneuver:Abbas Laghrour in the Nememcha, Mohammed le Balafré in Agounnenda and especially Commander Azzedine of whom he will say:“We met there an adversary who, surprised in a severe ambush, reacted quickly and courageously. He even proved capable, after forty-eight hours of solitary confinement, of making his skin pay dearly. It is understandable that such a group, commanded by such leaders, has so far won only victories. »
This probably explains the controversial handshake he exchanged live on television with Commander Azzedine. To those who reproached him for it, Bigeard replied:"One does not dishonor oneself by paying homage to the adversary". Larbi Ben M'Hidi, one of the leaders of the Autonomous Zone of Algiers during the Battle of Algiers, of which he says:"He is the soul of the resistance, fanatical, enlightened, he lives only for the independence of Algeria. “
However, the respect he always had for his opponents still had its limits. Indeed, while he was captive with thousands of other soldiers following the fall of Dien Bien Phu, he will never forgive the Viets for having left thousands of people to die of hunger and exhaustion while 'they had the possibility of much more correct treatment towards them.
"The real pain, the only thing that I do not forgive the Viets, is the eight thousand deaths during these four months of captivity . Useless cruelty, inhumanity. Giáp was a great general, but his doctrine, Marxism, was inhuman. The ex-Vietminh captain told me, “We didn’t kill any prisoners. It's true, they let them die, when it would have been so easy to save everyone. I said it:a banana a day, and we brought the guys back alive. I can never forget it. "
Apart from the case cited above, Bigeard will not accept the actions
"blind terrorists" who struck Algiers:"If we have esteem for Jebel fighters, especially when they fight well, we despise terrorists. »
Personal analysis
The defeat of 1940
“On May 10, 1940, Hitler's army invaded France, bypassing the Maginot Line, rushing through the Ardennes. In a few hours, our divisions are crushed, it is the most total disaster. Even today, this lightning defeat seems unbelievable. Of course, the army had weaknesses, the general staff lacked discernment, and our state of unpreparedness severely weakened us. All the beautiful theories of these staffs, waging war from their offices, were swept away in a few hours. Reality is unforgiving. »
The situation in Indochina
Bigeard will have greatly deplored the incompetence of his superiors in this conflict which he will only consider lost in the last days of Dien Bien Phu. In Ma vie pour la France, he compared conventional warfare to wanting to kill an elusive
fly with a pestle. Thanks to a certain confidence acquired, he was able to carry out operations of an unprecedented nature with many successes. By immersing himself in the mentality of the enemy and imitating his methods, Bigeard delivered a veritable "counter-guerrilla warfare" by punching actions at dawn followed by a rapid withdrawal, so that a certain insecurity permanently settled with the enemy. Its operations were always preceded by active intelligence, the fruit of collaboration and dialogue with the local populations. excess mortality during the war. Bigeard was able to train troops himself through heavy training and apprenticeship programs in France. These subsequently imposed themselves on the field as elite units
with very high success rates, called upon for hard knocks. It will be with many of the latter that he will command desperate assaults during the battle of Dien Bien Phu.
He will remain bitter over a situation that has become catastrophic through the fault of a staff incompetent and political decisions far removed from the field. This is how, according to him, the twelve thousand men of the basin will be abandoned to their fate in view of the disturbing situation of the fiasco. Running out of food and ammunition and after heavy losses, they will be abandoned and forgotten.
Military heritage
Due to his originality and his relative autonomy, Marcel Bigeard was able to develop and put into practice techniques adapted to certain situations. Bigeard adapted to the nature of the enemy, and developed commando raid techniques deep into enemy lines. By mimicry, he operated in a very brief and furtive way.
In Algeria, once again faced with an unconventional war, he developed the concept of counter-guerrilla warfare, based on very significant intelligence resources. This allowed him to infiltrate and reconstruct the architecture of the resistance networks
in Algiers. Despite a good overall efficiency, he considered this work more worthy of investigators, police officers than soldiers. Bigeard's innovations were studied by the Pentagon in preparation for the invasion of Iraq.
Still in Algeria, after the Battle of Algiers, facing the desert immensities of southern Algeria, Bigeard invented the helicopter operation:instead of using helicopters to bring back the wounded as was customary until then, he take advantage of the speed and flexibility of use of these machines to surprise the enemy. These practices will be massively taken up by the Americans during the Vietnam War.
Posthumous tributes
The General-Bigeard Foundation
A General-Bigeard Foundation, was created by his widow and his daughter in partnership with the Fondation de France in June 2011. This foundation "aims to perpetuate the work and the memory of Marcel Bigeard by endeavoring in particular to promote among the youth the values of courage and pride of the fatherland, in the spirit of the general". Among the founding members are notably Colonel Jacques Allaire, General Jean-Louis Brette and René Guitton, the publisher of Marcel Bigeard. Former President of the Republic Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, of whom Marcel Bigeard was Secretary of State for Defense (1975-1976), has been named Honorary President of the Foundation.
Burial place
Before his death, the general had expressed his wish that his ashes be scattered at the site of the battle of Diên Biên Phu, where his comrades-in-arms killed in action in 1954 rest, but the Vietnamese authorities opposed a categorical refusal to this query.
On the proposal of the Minister of Defense, Gérard Longuet, it was first planned to transfer the ashes of General Bigeard to the Hôtel des Invalides, with the agreement of his daughter Marie-France.
After some voices were raised against this project of transfer to the Invalides, the Ministry of Defense announced on September 29, 2012 that the ashes of General Bigeard would finally rest on the site of the Indochina War Memorial in Fréjus.
On November 20, 2012, in the presence of former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the Minister of Defense, Jean-Yves Le Drian inaugurates in Fréjus on the site of the Memorial of the Wars in Indochina, a stele which welcomes his ashes.
A "Marcel Bigeard Promotion" at the ÉmiaOn the proposal of Jean Paul POURADE, friend of General BIGEARD and a committee composed of Generals Jean Louis GEORGELIN, Lucien LE BOUDEC and Valérie ANDRE, Colonel ALLAIRE, Madame Geneviève de GALARD and the filmmaker Pierre SCHOENDORFFER, the fiftieth promotion of the Interarms Military School of Coetquidan chose on July 23, 2011 to be baptized Promotion Général Bigeard.
A stele 3.65 m high and weighing almost ten tons, made of Caunes-Minervois marble, was inaugurated on June 29, 2012. It is installed on Place du Général-de-Gaulle, opposite the entrance to its former regiment, the 3rd RPIMa. It represents General Bigeard in profile, smoking a pipe and wearing the famous Bigeard cap. The monument was financed by a subscription which brought in 35,000 euros. In addition, in a town of La Rochelle, Lagord, a general Bigeard roundabout was inaugurated, opposite the multipurpose hall, by Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Jean.
Decorations
General Marcel Bigeard's decorations.
Titles of French decorations
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor
War Cross 1939-1945 with 7 citations including 3 to the order of the army (palms)
Cross of war from theaters of external operations with 17 citations, including 12 at the order of the army
Military Valor Cross with 4 citations at the order of the army
Medal of the Resistance (decree of 6/09/1945)
Medal for escaped prisoners
Colonial medal "Far East" and "A.O.F" clasps "
Commemorative medal for the 1939-1945 war
Commemorative medal for the Indochina campaign
Commemorative medal for security operations and policing in North Africa
Military Wounded Medal with five stars (for five war wounds)
Titles of foreign decorations
Distinguished Service Order (DSO)
Senegalese Grand Officer of Merit
Togolese Grand Officer of Merit
Grand Officer of Merit Comorian
Grand Officer Saudi Arabia
Commander of the Mauritanian National Order of Merit
Commander of the Central African Merit
Commander Thai Country Federation
Commander of the Dragon of Annam
Commander Legion of Merit (US)
Officer of the Million Elephants (Laos