Mireille Day

French bureaucracy, the tail of the plane was in one local government division and the head of the plane was in another.

And they spent about eight months trying to work out which local government division to try him in.

Anyway, once they did that, he went to court and André Malraux, who was quite a famous French writer and at that time he was also, I think, culture minister and he had other claims to fame as well, spoke on Jean's behalf and said, this man has saved 600,000 lives.

Because what, did some of that medicine end up making its way to Bangladesh?

Eventually it did, yes.

Even though the hijacker was apprehended, there was such an outcry about the situation in Bangladesh that the Red Cross ended up sending that medication that he'd asked for to Bangladesh.

It is a thing of its place and of its time and place.

And also around that time, and I remember this vividly, George Harrison decided to have a concert for Bangladesh.

And, you know, the funds went to Bangladesh.

So there was that mix of direct action.

And it was a thing in the 70s.

Direct action would produce results.

Yes.

What did you think at the time?

Well, it was...

It was bizarre because, you know, we'd played Scrabble with this man and backgammon and we chatted and suddenly he comes out with this extraordinary story.

In 1976, he was involved in a bank heist where he and his partners in crime got away with 8 million francs, which in today's money would be worth about 10 million US dollars.

How did they pull this off?

Well, Jean's main partner in crime, Hervé de Vailleterre, was one of the chief accountants for France's richest man at the time, Marcel Dassault.

Dassault was a manufacturer of aeroplanes.