Claude Jean Pierre Érignac (French pronunciation: [klod ʒɑ̃ pjɛʁ eʁiɲak]; 15 December 1937 – 6 February 1998) was a French prefect on the island of Corsica.
Érignac was born in Mende, Lozère. In the course of his political career, he had been prefect of several departments and overseas departments since 1967. In 1996 he went to Ajaccio in Corsica to take office as the Prefect of Corse-du-Sud.
Hélène Pastor (31 March 1937 – 21 May 2014) was a Monegasque businesswoman and heiress. She headed what is seen as Monaco’s ‘second dynasty’, and was the richest woman in the principality. She was assassinated by a gang that included her son-in-law, who was subsequently jailed for life in 2018.
Rémi Fraisse (French pronunciation: [ʁemi fʁɛs]; August 31, 1993 in Toulouse – October 26, 2014 in Lisle-sur-Tarn) was a French botanist involved in nature conservation. He was killed by the explosion of an OF-F1 grenade. The projectile was fired by an officer of the French police and his family are bringing charges against him. Fraisse died at the age of 21 during protests against the construction of the Sivens Dam.
Prince Jean Marie François Ferdinand de Broglie (21 June 1921 – 24 December 1976) was a French politician and President of the National Assembly in 1959.
Raymond Aimos (4 February 1889 – 22 August 1944) was a French film actor. He was shot and killed as a FFI combatant during the liberation of Paris.
Gaston Calmette (30 July 1858 – 16 March 1914) was a French journalist and newspaper editor, whose death was the subject of a notable murder trial.
Victor Noir, born Yvan Salmon (27 July 1848 – 11 January 1870), was a French journalist. After he was shot and killed by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, a cousin of the French Emperor Napoleon III (r. 1852–1870), Noir became a symbol of opposition to the imperial regime. His tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris has become a fertility symbol.
Joseph Fontanet (9 February 1921 – 2 February 1980) was an assassinated member of the French Parliament.
He was born in, Frontenex, Savoie. He was first elected to Parliament in 1956 as MP for Savoie. In his 17 years in Parliament he held various cabinet positions including Health, Labour and Employment, and Trade and Industry. On 1 February 1980 he was shot shortly after midnight in Paris and died the following day. No one has ever been convicted for the murder.
Armand Carrel (8 May 1800 – 25 July 1836) was a French journalist and political writer.
The Dominici affair was the criminal investigation into the murder of three Britons in France. During the night of 4/5 August 1952, Sir Jack Drummond, a 61-year-old scientist; his 44-year-old wife Anne (née Wilbraham); and their 10-year-old daughter Elizabeth were murdered next to their car, a green Hillman, with registration NNK 686 which was parked in a lay-by near La Grand'Terre, the farm belonging to the Dominici family, located near the village of Lurs in the département of Basses-Alpes (now Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). Gaston Dominici was convicted of the three murders in 1957 and sentenced to death. In 1957, President René Coty commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, and on 14 July 1960, President Charles de Gaulle ordered Dominici's release on humanitarian grounds due to his poor health. Dominici was never pardoned or given a re-trial and died on 4 April 1965.
The case was discussed by the literary theorist Roland Barthes in his book Mythologies. Barthes argues that Dominici was denied a fair trial because the rural dialect in which he spoke was incomprehensible to the judges, resulting in a verdict based on preconceptions and speculation; such an unfair judgment, in which the accused is condemned due to the incompatibility of their own language with that of their accuser, is identified by Barthes as an omnipresent risk.The trial was the basis of the 1973 film The Dominici Affair directed by Claude Bernard-Aubert and starring Jean Gabin and Gérard Depardieu.