Assassination of Hubert Chaufourier

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Assassination of Hubert Chaufourier
Bordeaux Place du Parlement R01.jpg
Cadarsac Square, Aimargues, the site of the assassination. Chaufourier was shot from the top-right open window.
LocationCadarsac Square, Aimargues, Gaullica
DateMarch 4, 1964
14:18 (VST)
TargetHubert Chaufourier
Attack type
Assassination
WeaponsUnknown, ammo used was 7.62x39mm
Deaths1, Chaufourier
Inquiry1964–67; declassified in 2001
AccusedSeveral

On March 4, 1964, Gaullican president Hubert Chaufourier was assassinated whilst delivering a public speech in Aimargues, Gaullica, to an onlooking crowd of some 2,000 people. Chaufourier was fatally wounded by a single gunshot to the head by a 7.62x39mm bullet cartridge, fired from a top-floor window of the Saint-Jean-du-Plessis Hall that overlooks Cadarsac Square. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and local authorities initiated a lockdown of the city that lasted some six hours, but the perpetrator was never caught. The assassination caused a widespread tightening of official security in Gaullica as well as other nations of the Euclean Community.

Several theories have been proposed as to the motive and background of the killer, with the Catholic Labour Union accusing the Gaullican Section of the Workers' International as well as the extremist wing of the Social Democratic Party of collaborating to assassinate Chaufourier. In response, Grégoire Landry, leader of the PSD at the time, expelled much of its hard-left wing in a successful party re-branding that eventually secured him the presidency two years later. The inquiry into the murder was conducted from 1964 to 1967, and concluded publicly that the assassination was likely the work of the Gaullican extreme left. Despite this conclusion, several documents associated with the CLU and the inquiry were declassified in 2001, revealing that there were "well-grounded suspicions" on which the assassination could be considered the work of foreign intelligence. Since then, several external theories have arisen as to the perpetrator's affiliation.

Despite the declassification of the documents, the investigation was not re-opened and to this day is considered a closed case by the Gaullican government.

Background

Since the post-war Gaullican Republic had emerged in 1936, its domestic politics had been dominated by the Catholic Labour Union through the two-term presidencies of Albert Montecardé and successor Sotirien Roche, who had jointly established a framework that allowed the CLU to enjoy relative dominance among its competitor parties, both in the presidency and the legislature. Choufourier ascended to the presidency in 1960 in an increasingly fractured and geopolitically pillared Euclea. With Kirenia expanding its influence on Gaullica's western border in Aimilia and East Miersa and Soravia achieving the same through Amathia, Slirnia and West Miersa, Gaullican politicians were wary of the increased geopolitical threat that the two powers encroaching on their borders meant for the future of both Gaullica and the Euclean Community. Compared to the hardline stances of Montecardé and Roche, Chaufourier had neither the oratory skills nor the political truculence to the west as his predecessors. In 1961, Le Monde described him as "the cracked and crumbling pillar in the trifecta of the post-war prosperity and opulence". Such descriptions were characteristic of Chaufourier's presidency, who, before his death, was widely considered to have failed to live up to the expectations or precedence set by his two presidential predecessors.

The CLU had administered the country based on the principles of social conservatism throughout the plurality of its dominance in office. Despite soft Euclosceptic factions within the party, the CLU was an advocate for the expansion and consolidation of the Euclean Community and its adherence to the terms set out by the Treaty of Kesselbourg. Eucloscepticism in Gaullica was mainly a policy of the hard left-wing during the early 1960s, who opposed the broadening of ties with nations such as Estmere and Werania in favour of rekindling ties with Kirenia and its allied bloc. The hard-left of the PSD were a small but vocal minority in the party, whose de facto leader, Marc-Antoine Sardou, was an outspoken advocate for positive bilateral relations with Kirenia.

On top of this, the lessened strength and authority of the president with Chaufourier in office could have been seen as an opportunity for competing powers to attempt to make their mark on Gaullican domestic politics. The CLU had been declining in popularity under Chaufourier as part of a general trend of pro-liberalisation and backlash against social conservatism amongst the Gaullican electorate, particularly young voters. Such political trends have been used in theories that propagate that the Kirenian Salateenistus was at the helm of organising the assassination, attempting to swing Gaullican poltiics in favour of the left, while others insinuate that Soravia may have been behind it, with the aim of securing a right-wing, pro-western Gaullican president.

Marian Scharer delivers his recount on national television in 1965.

Sequence of events

Through eyewitnesses, radio communications and the testimonies of bodyguards and associates given between 1964 and 1967, Gaullican police forces were able to accurately resemble a sequence of events leading up to, during, and directly after the assassination.

Detailed recounts and given mainly through the accounts of three bodyguards who accompanied Charfourier on the day of his assassination – Yves Galopin, Maxime Hauet and Marian Scharer – who each gave separate and independent retellings of the event during murder inquisitions and trials between 1964 and 1965. The reproduced timeline included in the final 1967 report goes as follows:

  • 14:05:00 – Chaufourier and his entourage arrive in Aimargues in a presidential motorcade.
  • 14:10:00 – Chaufourier begins approaching the podium at Cadarsac Square.
  • 14:10:40 – He begins his speech.
  • 14:12:0014:15:00 – Perpetrator arrives at the window, appearing to be watching (the president and his bodyguards are faced away from the window).
  • 14:17:40 – Applause masks some audible concern from certain crowd members.
  • 14:18:00 – Chaufourier is shot once in the back of the head.
  • 14:18:10 – The perpetrator runs off from the top window.
  • 14:21:00 – The Mayor of Aimargues announces a city-wide lockdown and manhunt in an attempt to find the perpetrator, all residents are ordered to remain inside their houses for the duration of the lockdown.
  • 14:45:00 – Several suspects have been apprehended and taken to local police stations.
  • 15:00:0016:00:00 – Perpetrator leaves the vicinity of Aimargues.
  • 16:00:00 – First national broadcasts of Chaufourier's death.
  • 20:19:00 – Aimargues lockdown ends as police suspend their manhunt.

This timeline served as the basis for investigations into the assassination during the inquiry in the 1960s. People attending were questioned and alibis distributed based on this recounted timeline, and whether or not it was accurate has been subject to debate both currently and historically. While the investigators and police officials regularly state that timeline is likely only off by a few minutes maximum at each interval, some theorists maintain that an incorrect timeline has massively hindered the investigation, leading to the false verification of alibis of people that may have been connected or complacent in the assassination.

Murder theories

SGIO/left-wing involvement

The main theory surrounding the assassination of Chaufourier was that it was perpetrated or enabled by the extremist left in Gaullica, namely the Gaullican Section of the Workers' International and some hard-left members of the Social Democratic Party. Shortly after Chaufourier's death, interim CLU leader René Pompidou stated that "early evidence" suggested an "unquestionable link" between the assassination and the "extreme left". As the inquiry proceeded, the term "extreme left" drifted away from Kirenia and the blame was quickly shifted onto the domestic hard left in Gaullica. Pompidou explicitly mentioned the SGIO and Sardou and accused them vitriolically of being enablers and possible co-conspirators in the murder. His accusations were largely backed by CLU ministers whose allegiance lay mainly with the party. Sardou responded several days later in a public address, in which he accused Pompidou and the CLU of attempting to "manipulate and conceal evidence" for the "benefit of the party", and that his main goal was to give their "movement" a "disingenuous and false reputation".

Despite Sardou's backlash, and Pompidou's relative lack of tangible public evidence linking the SGIO with the assassination, PSD leader Landry expelled what he deemed as the "hard-left tumour" of the party, and vowed that he would refuse to work with Sardou's SGIO while he remained leader of the party. Political analysts have pointed to Landry's expulsion of the SGIO from cooperation with his party as one of the main catalysts to the gradual acceptance of the theory that the assassination was organised by the SGIO.

File:Anita Vetra.jpg
Corinthian-born Gabriela Ojsteršek was one of the suspects apprehended during the manhunt.

Foreign involvement

Carinthia and Novalia

One of the only theories where a suspect was apprehended to reinforce it, some state that Chaufourier was assassinated by far-left Carinthian or Novalian activists and nationalists, who wanted to stop Gaullica's improvement in bilateral relations with the military dictatorship in Etruria. Under Francesco Aurelio Sciarri, many Carinthians and Novalians in western Etruria were killed, tortured or apprehended by the specialist Gruppo Ordini Speciali ("Special Orders Group"). One suspect from Corinthia, Gabriela Ojsteršek, was apprehended during the manhunt, but eventually released due to insufficient accusatory evidence.

Several immediate circumstances have been put forward in addition to controversy surrounding Gaullica's improvement in relations with Etruria's military republic. Some theorists state that the assassination was partially in retaliation to the killing of Zlatko Juran, an influential far-left leader of the Novalians throughout the Western Emergency in Etruria, who was killed by the GOS in a raid on January 3, 1964.

Other theorists perpetrate that the killing may have been in response to the controversial decision for Gaullican companies to sell arms to the GOS during the early 1960s.

Alexandre Lévesque was a supporter of the theory of Kirenian involvement.

Kirenia

When the findings of the inquiry were declassified, albeit partially redacted, in 2001, it stated that there was evidence linking the assassination to the possible works of a foreign intelligence agency. With the SGIO theory still prevalent among Gaullicans, theorists initially pointed to the Kirenian Salateenistus as the likely perpetrators of the assassination. They linked the decline of the CLU and rise in popularity of the PSD-SGIO coalition to the time of the assassination, insinuating that Kirenia had aimed to usher the Gaullican left-wing, especially its pro-Kirenian factions, into positions of considerable political influence. Main perpetrators of this theory include Alexandre Lévesque, who succeeded the CLU in 2002 as leader of the Gaullican Conservatives, a right-wing party that included a much broader spectrum of the right-wing. Lévesque has often, in coordination with Clélie Gérin-Lajoie, been described as Gaullica's most right-wing president.

Kirenia denied the accusations when the documents were declassified in 2001, stating that Kirenia "had no interest with involvement in the domestic affairs of another nation", and that the Salateenistus was an organisation "founded on the principles of national defense, not transnational aggression".

Oleksii Dobrovolsky's foreign policy gave weight to the notion of PDP involvement.

Soravia

Soravia was another nation that was linked with involvements in the assassination through the PDP. Under the leadership of Oleksii Dobrovolsky, Soravia, as well as the PDP, took a more active and interventionist stance in global and regional geopolitics, including exerting increasing influence on its allies in central Euclea. Despite its wide sphere of influence, Soravia was in need of a reliable relationship with an influential nation within the Euclean Community. Wanting to decrease levels of animosity between the two blocs at the height of the Great Game, supporters of this theory state that the PDP assassinated Chaufourier with the intent of promoting some of the more pro-Soravia, further-right and more Euclosceptic elements of the party to a more influential position. Pompadou himself, who succeeded Chaufourier, was noted for his less enthusiastic stance toward the Euclean Community, a stance that eventually got him elected out in 1966 in favour of the new-look PSD.

PDP officials and Soravian politicians have also fervently denied accusations from Gaullican politicans that it was involved in the assassination, labelling them as "baseless" and "inflammatory". Those who disagree with the theory also point to the PDP's usual motif of planned, meticulous and less public methods of operation as evidence against the theory that the PDP were involved in the assassination.

Political analyst Bethsabée Reverdin proposed the CLU plotted to kill its own leader.

CLU hierarchy theory

Another significant fringe theory, the CLU hierarchy theory was proposed by political analyst Bethsabée Reverdin in 1980. It accuses the in-grown and experienced CLU hierarchy of plotting against its own leader, whom they perceived as weak and incapable of leading the party into the future, in favour of a stronger leader who could more actively and passionately contest the next elections. Reverdin points to prevailing attitudes within the party, especially towards the end of Chaufourier's life, that he was not elected based on political prowess, but based on his relationship with, and legacy of, Montecardé and Roche. This theory has been marred by the fact that Chaufourier's successor, Pompidou, was often perceived to be a worse leader than Chaufourier himself.

The theory states that the CLU hierarchy would have had detailed plans of Chaufourier's location at all times, giving them time to plan the assassination in advance. Most of the CLU hierarchy were solidly middle-class, often considerably wealthy and possibly susceptible to bribes, giving them the financial leeway to negotiate with the perpetrator. During the Aimargues lockdown, CLU members were also treated as "high-priority individuals", and were allowed in and out of the city during the manhunt, possibly allowing them to escort the perpetrator safely out of the city under the guise of a party official.

In popular culture

In the weeks following the assassination Pompidou's Minister for the Interior, Father Maxime Vaugeois, was asked a question by a reporter with no concrete answer: "Will police-forces be retrained in efforts to prevent this from happening in the future?"

Vaugeois replied with: "We are looking into the matter. Whether or not the fault can be blamed with the police is unknown given the lack of information pertaining to this horrific event as yet. This is to the effect of asking us; 'who killed Hubert Chaufourier?'. We will have an answer, but we do not have one as of yet."

Whilst highly criticised as a non-answer at the time, the usage of "who killed Hubert Chaufourier?" as a rhetorical device became highly popularised within Gaullican political circles, and still is. When pressed with a rhetorical question, often-times politicians will reply with "who killed Hubert Chaufourier?" as a way to imply "who knows?".

The assassination was listed by Le Monde as one of the most important events in post-war Gaullica, arguing that it shattered the perception of an "invincible party apparatus that had governed since the republic was founded."

In the early 2000s interest in the assassination was renewed following the release of a series of documentaries titled The Chaufourier Conspiracy.

See also