Terror group bombs paper

Press, 20 August 1982, Page 6

Terror group bombs paper

NZPA Paris A bomb exploded yesterday at the Paris offices of an extreme-Right daily newspaper, and was immediately claimed by the extreme Leftwing “Action Directe” group, banned by the French Government..

The blast, shortly before dawn at the premises of the tabloid “Minute” in central Paris, left serious damage but no casualties. Action Directe is believed to have made 30 terrorist attacks in France in the last two years. The founder and leader, Jean-Marc Bouillon, aged 30, said in an interview in the Paris daily newspaper “Lib eratibn” that he founded Action Directe in 1979 by recruiting Maoist terrorists who had attacked several South American diplomats.

He issued a manifesto in March in which he defined his group as “an organisation which defends the principle of armed struggle.”

He was arrested with his companion, Nathalie Menigon, in September, 1980, after

attacks against 15 public buildings, including the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Co-operation. The police considered that their arrests would spell the end of Action Directe. and Mr Bouillon and other leaders were charged with terrorism and scheduled to be tried before the State Security Court.

But this Court, set up by the former President de Gaulle, was dissolved by President Mitterrand on the grounds that it was an abuse of legal powers. All but two of Action Directe members were released under a Mitterrand amnesty. These two — Joelle Aubron and Mohamed Hamani — had been arrested in April for possessing arms and explosives in a Paris cache.

Last month the Government dissolved the extreme Rightist Service d'Action on the grounds that this onetime Gaullist militia had become a refuge for common criminals. '