Action directe (armed group)

Action directe (AD) was a French revolutionary group which committed a series of assassinations and violent attacks in France between 1979 and 1987. Members of Action directe considered themselves libertarian communist who had formed an "urban guerrilla organization". The French government banned the group.

Founding
Action directe was set up in 1977 by two other groups, GARI (Groupes d'Action Révolutionnaire Internationalistes, revolutionary internationalist action groups) and NAPAP (Noyaux Armés pour l'Autonomie Populaire, Armed Core Groups for Popular Autonomy), as the "military-political co-ordination of the autonomous movement". In 1979, it was transformed into an "urban guerrilla organization" and carried out violent attacks under the banner of "anti-imperialism" and "proletarian defence." The group was banned by the French government in 1984. In August 1985, Action directe allied itself with the German Red Army Faction.

Attacks
Action directe carried out some 50 attacks, including a machine gun assault on the employers' union headquarters on 1 May 1979 as well as attacks on French government buildings, property management agencies, French army buildings, companies in the military-industrial complex, and the state of Israel. They carried out robberies or "proletarian expropriation" actions, and assassinations, killing Engineer General René Audran, the manager of French arms sales, in 1985. They were also accused of Georges Besse's 1986 killing, a murder allegedly justified because he was the then head of the French automaker Renault. However, they denied it during their trial. Besse was also former president of Eurodif nuclear company, in which Iran had a 10% share. They also claimed joint responsibility for the 1985 bomb attack carried out by the Red Army Faction at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, which killed 2 people.

Arrests
On 21 February 1987, the main Action directe members, Jean-Marc Rouillan, Nathalie Ménigon, Joëlle Aubron, and Georges Cipriani, were arrested. They were later sentenced to life imprisonment. Régis Schleicher had already been arrested in 1984. Joëlle Aubron was released in June 2004 for health reasons and died of lung cancer on 1 March 2006. There is an ongoing campaign by some sections of the French far-left that the Action directe members still imprisoned, who consider themselves political prisoners, should be paroled. In December 2007, Rouillan was allowed a state of "semi-liberty", able to leave prison for extended periods. In September 2008, a Parisian court called for the revoking of this status after he declared in an interview with l’Express that "I remain convinced that armed struggle is necessary at certain moments of the revolutionary process."

In popular culture
The British TV mini-series Red Fox, made in 1991 and starring John Hurt, Jane Birkin and Brian Cox, was set in France and tells of a British businessman kidnapped by a member of Action directe. (The original novel by Gerald Seymour was set in Italy and involved the Red Brigades.)

Ralph Fiennes' character in the 2006 film Land of the Blind mentions Action Directe as an example for a terrorist group whose names sound like rock bands', along with The Weathermen, Black September and Red Army Faction.

In Tom Clancy's book Patriot Games protagonist Jack Ryan identifies a training camp used by the group which is later raided by French special forces. It is also briefly mentioned by Harrison Ford's character in the 1992 film of the same name.

In Clancy's book Rainbow Six, members of Action directe assault a fictionalized Euro Disney called Worldpark.

Wolfgang Güllich named a climbing route Action Directe in Frankenjura, Germany, which was recognized as the first route in the XI grade (or 9a) in the World, and is still one of the hardest climbing routes in the world. Apparently the inspiration for the name came during training for the route, as it appeared to him that the training is a terror act on his fingers.