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.
René Marx Dormoy (French pronunciation: [ʁəne maʁks dɔʁmwa], 1 August 1888 – 26 July 1941) was a French socialist politician, noted for his opposition to the far right. Under his leadership as Minister of the Interior in the government of Léon Blum, the French police infiltrated La Cagoule, which was planning the overthrow of the French Third Republic, led by the Popular Front government. Dormoy directed the arrest and imprisonment of 70 cagoulards in November 1937. The police recovered 2 tons of armaments from their sites.
After the Occupation of France, Dormoy as a representative refused to approve providing full powers to Marshal Philippe Petain and the Vichy government. He was arrested in 1940 and interned in house arrest in Montélimar. He was assassinated there in July 1941 by a bomb set off at his house. It was believed to be the work of La Cagoule terrorists.
Yvan Colonna (Corsican: Ivanu Colonna, [iˈvanu koˈlɔnna]; 7 April 1960 – 21 March 2022) was a Italian/Corsican nationalist convicted for the assassination in 1998 of the prefect of Corse-du-Sud, Claude Érignac. He was beaten to death in prison by a jihadist inmate, sparking riots.
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.
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.