CHRISTIAN PROUTEAU

One year after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games, in 1973 Christian Prouteau was put in charge to create a French special unit that would prevent similar events to ever happen gain. He built and directed the GIGN, the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group until 1982, directing 64 operations out of 67, was injured; received 7 commendations, and freed 1.300 hostages. When asked by the French president and prime minister to send his men to Mecca, Prouteau categorically refused: for him, the situation was too volatile and the mission too risky even for the tough-as-nails specialists of the GIGN.