Paul Barril, co-founder of GIGN, died at the age of 80

Paul Barril, co-founder of GIGN, the elite unit of the national gendarmerie, died Tuesday evening at the age of 80, this intervention group announced Wednesday.

Paul Barril was a character who changed the image of the gendarmerie, through his efficiency and his audacity. But his trajectory was marked by his involvement in two scandals of the Mitterrand era: the affair of the Irish of Vincennes and that of the illegal wiretapping of the Elysée. An influential figure in Africa, he was implicated after the Rwanda genocide