Gilles Perrault

French lawyer, writer and journalist, whose 1964 book Le Secret du jour J (Secrets of D-Day, 1974) won a prize from the Comité d'action de la Résistance, and was an international bestseller. His L'Orchestre rouge (1967) was even more successful. In 1969 Perrault published a spy novel, Le dossier 51.

Throughout the '90s Perrault was active in his fight against le Front National, an extremist right political party in France. In 1990 he published Notre ami le roi (Our Friend the King, 1993) about the regime and human rights abuses of Hassan II, at the time king of Morocco.

In 2008 Perrault and his publisher Fayard were found guilty of defamation against the Marseille police in the book L'ombre de Christian Ranucci covering the Christian Ranucci affair. Ranucci was one of the last persons to be executed in France, by guillotine in 1976.

Perrault was a member of l'Association pour le Droit de Mourir dans la Dignité, an association for legalization of euthanasia and the right to die with dignity. He died from a heart attack on 3 August 2023 at age 92 in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.