Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was a French Air Force lieutenant-colonel and military air weaponry engineer. However, his name is associated with the attempted assassination of the former French President Charles de Gaulle on 22 August 1962, following de Gaulle’s decision to accept Algerian independence. The attack made international headlines. Bastien-Thiry was the last person to be executed by firing squad in France. This episode is detailed in the novel ‘The Day of the Jackal’, which was made into a movie.
