December 28th 1936 Jacques-Rene Mesrine born in Clichy to wealthy parents

August 1952 Mesrine studied at the prestigious school College de Juilly, he was expelled from two schools for aggressive behaviour, at least one known to be directed at the headmaster

1955 Mesrine does his national service joins the war in Algeria as a parachutist- Commando
He also marries Lydia De Souza

1957 After national service Mesrine enlists in the French Foreign Legion and is decorated by General de Gaulle with the military cross but he is also locked up several times for racketeering and breaking the rules

1959 Mesrine returns to civilian life, working in an architectural office but was fired during a downsizing in 1964 when he promptly divorces De Souza and returns to his criminal life and the Street girls.

I961 Mesrine marries for a second time, his wife Maria bears him three children

1962 Jacques Mesrine is stopped with three other accomplices he is carrying a prohibited weapon and is sentenced to 18 months in Orleans

1963 and after leaving prison Jacques takes on the management of a pub which quickly becomes a den for gangsters he also meets and falls for Jeanne Schneider
She becomes his accomplice

1965 Mesrine and Schhneider are apprehended in Majorca for trying to break into the governor’s office

In October 1966 Jacques Mesrine returns to the licensing trade and opens a restaurant in Santa Cruz in Tenerife two months later when the restaurant is short of funds he holds up a jewellers in Geneva

1967 and Mesrine opens another restaurant in Compiegne it also fails

Feb 1968 Mesrine robs a Hotel in Chamonix whist on a skiing trip he finishes his holiday with Jeanne Schneider they off to a new life in Canada initially heading for Quebec where he worked briefly as a Chauffeur


1969 Jeanne and Jacques lay low in Canada working for 5 months for George Deslauriers a wealthy grocer and textile, eventually he sacked them and they responded by kidnapping him and demanding a $200,000 ransom
They get their money from his brother Marcel and head for Detroit in the United States. He reputedly gave the money to the homeless

July 1969 the body of a strangled woman Evelyne Bouthillier is discovered. Mesrine and Schneider match the descriptions of the perpetrators and are arrested in Texarkana, Arkansas however a lack of evidence means that all the judge can do is deport them for illegally entering the United States

In August 1972 Mesrine is sentenced to 10 years in a Canadian penitentiary but he escapes enroute with 5 other prisoners one of them, Jean Paul Mercier whom he met in Quebec

They begin a crime spree in the Montreal area including robbing the Toronto Dominon Bank and several others in the area and they stole 320,000 ff from a factory then on the way back they went past the bank they had raided three days earlier and robbed it again taking 280,000 ff from a cashier

In 1973 things in Canada were too hot for Mesrine and he returned to France, the authorities were aware that he was now travelling with two women Jeanne Schnieder and Sylvie Jeanjaquot, a striking woman of Swedish origin. This would obviously attract attention and could lead to his capture.

Knowing Mesrine was going to be caught soon, he set about planning his escape from Palais de Justice in Compiegne on the outskirts of Paris where he knew he would be tried initially.

And on 8th March 1973 he was captured at an address in Paris and sent for trial
He apparently welcomed the chief of police Commissaire Broussard with a glass of champagne offering his congratulations at having “won this round”

In October 1974, 8 days after his excape from Saint Vincent de Paul Prison in Laval, Mercier was killed during a bank raid and Mesrine lost his partner in crime

Mesrine kidnaps Jacques Tiller a reporter for the far right newspaper, ‘Minute’ who had criticised Mesrine in the press and beats him up

Mesrine was sent for trial in 1974 and escaped almost immediately from La Sante prison in the middle of the morning. He and his new sidekick, Francois Besse simply walked out the front door dressed as prison guards no one had ever escaped from La Sante prison before.

In 1976 Mesrine posing as a reporter takes the chief of the Paris police for dinner
The men get along well and a picture of the two is taken at the behest of the police chief who is clearly enjoying his evening.
Talk turns to Mesrine and the Police at this point Jacques jokingly tells Brussard that he could be in the same restaurant as Mesrine and he would not know
The police chief laughs and pours himself another glass of Medoc.
The pictures of the two of them dining are leaked to the press by Mesrine a few days later

Mesrine made the Chief of Police look incompetent said the papers
Giscard d’Estaing was furious.

Mesrine follows up this outrage by posing as a hairdresser at a crime scene and quizzing the police on the details of the recent robbery again he is not recognised and does not leave the scene for over an hour claiming that he needs to return to his shop next to the bank.

In 1977 whilst awaiting trial, Mesrine wrote a wildly exaggerated autobiography called L’Instinct, The Killing Instinct that boasted of a large number of murders he never committed. He was eventually sentenced to what was regarded a very lenient 20 year stretch.

On 8th May 1977. Mesrine and his new accomplice, Francois Besse escaped from La Sante Prison.

I978 Mesrine tries to kidnap the judge that gave him the 20 year sentence, District Judge Petit is unharmed but Mesrine still vowed to kill him unless all high security prisons were closed immediately.

On 21st June 1979, Mesrine kidnapped Henri Lelievre and received 6 million francs. Mesrine had become ‘Public Enemy Number One’.

On 2nd of November 1979 as Mesrine waited at some trafficlights in his BMW, police sharp shooters ended his life by firing over twenty rounds into him the police announced the operation as a complete success, apparently the order came directly from French president Giscard d Estaing
Mesrine had no warning was given no trial and was the only citizen of France to be publicly executed on the orders of a government official since Napoleonic times.

Giscard d’Estaing ordered a press blackout when people started referring to the killing as an assassination, a term normally reserved for presidents and high ranking officials, this annoyed the president of France and he vowed to bury the Mesrine name and the lack of information coming out. Government officials led the press to seek out friends and associates of Mesrine but then stories began to immerge of all the people he had helped, from ex convicts to Street Girls, to those facing prosecution who could not afford legal representation, when these stories of robbing the banks to help the poor became public knowledge, comparisons with Robin Hood were made and a legend was born.