Gilles Perrault died on Thursday August 3 at his home in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont (Manche) at the age of 92, a close relative of the writer told Le Monde, confirming information from Ouest-France.
Jacques Peyroles, his real name, had started a career as a lawyer, before branching off into journalism and then literature. Under his pseudonym, he signed in 1969 a successful spy novel, Le Dossier 51, adapted into a film with Michel Deville.
“Gilles Perrault’s books are markers for my generation. There is a before and an after Our friend the king in Hassan II’s view of Morocco, “reacted Pierre Haski, journalist and president of Reporters Without Borders.
In 1978, the publication of the investigative book Le Pull-Over rouge, which fuels doubts about the guilt of Christian Ranucci, guillotined two years earlier for the murder of a little girl, will give rise to a lively controversy, and to his conviction for defamation. The death penalty was abolished in France in 1981, but requests for a review of the trial were never successful.
“A search for review is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” the writer told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in 2006, still hoping one day to see the case reviewed. Gilles Perrault is also the author of the resounding Our friend the king published in 1990 and which made a damning assessment of 30 years of the reign of Hassan II. The book also questions the complacency of certain French elites towards him.
Gilles Perrault had prefaced in 2014 a book very critical of the current king of Morocco, son of Hassan II, written by a former Moroccan journalist for AFP Omar Brouksy. Entitled Mohamed VI behind the masks, it was subtitled “the son of our friend” in reference to Gilles Perrault’s book.
