Mireille Day

Yeah, he started off in the French army, stationed in Algeria, just pre-independence, that change over time.

And he was very unhappy about his role as a soldier.

He was just being more like a policeman, you know, patrolling the streets.

And he also was not happy about France relinquishing its prize colony.

And so he joined the secret army organisation, which was stationed in Spain.

And what was that?

What did that mean?

That was an ultra-right-wing terrorist organisation that was against Algerian independence and was doing its best to keep it a colony and including assassinating Algerian citizens.

I think the next one after that, and by this time he had a wife and a pregnant wife.

The next one was in Yemen and one of the people who'd been with him in the secret army, one of the leaders there, had found him and asked him if he wanted a job as a mercenary.

And this was Jean's great chance to be a warrior.

I suppose he imagined himself to be Lawrence of Arabia.

It was the desert.

He'd not seen any real fighting as a trained soldier he was.

And so he went there.

He also was a mercenary in Biafra.

and Cabinda, which was a province of Angola.

Absolutely.

And it's a strange thing to discover that, which I discovered on the boat, that

And I've always wondered about this.