Marković affair

The Marković affair was a political scandal in France in the late 1960s, involving French President Georges Pompidou and movie star Alain Delon.

The affair began when one of Delon's bodyguards, Stevan Marković, was found dead. This caused his brother to start a feud with Delon and his friends, one of whom was Georges Pompidou. Both Delon and his longtime friend François Marcantoni were questioned by the police. Marcantoni was originally charged with the murder, but after further questioning by the police, he was released.[1] Marković's murder is still unsolved.

In a further development, sexually explicit photos allegedly of Claude Pompidou, Pompidou's wife, were found in Marković's car after his death. A former police chief, Lucien Aimé-Blanc, involved in obtaining the photos, stated that they had been planted by established Gaullist clans who were opposed to Pompidou.[2] Their veracity was then challenged.

Life and death of Stevan Marković

Marković was born on 10 May 1937 in Belgrade. In the 1950s Marković and his friend Milos Milos (Miloš Milošević) were involved in streetfighting in Belgrade. They met Delon, a young movie star at the time, who was making a film in Belgrade in co-production with Yugoslavian studios. Delon first employed Milos Milos and later Marković as his bodyguard. Marković was a friend with Serbian gangster Nikola Milinković, and walked in the first column of the convoy of Nikola's burial.

A heavy gambler who was often suspected of cheating, Marković was known for his high-class parties at which, it was alleged, he would set up secret cameras throughout the house, especially in the bedrooms.[3] He thus collected many compromising photos of the guests that could have damaged their social status. He most likely used the pictures for blackmail, especially since he approached several newspapers trying to sell them. Surprisingly, some of these photographs would be alleged to be directly targeting Delon and Marcantoni themselves.[3] However, the most important photos that Marković supposedly possessed were scandalous shots of Pompidou's wife. That was a major concern to Pompidou, who was preparing to run for president.[1] On 1 October 1968, Marković's body was found in a public dump in the village of Élancourt, Yvelines, west of Paris. Although many people had a reason to kill him, his murder is still unsolved.

Alain Delon and François Marcantoni's involvement

It was alleged that Delon became acquainted with "some highly dubious French gangland characters,"[1] and was a close friend of François Marcantoni.[1] When Delon's bodyguard Marković mysteriously died, Marcantoni and Delon came under investigation in part due to a letter written by Marković to his brother Aleksandar, in which he implicated Alain Delon and François Marcantoni as guilty, should any harm come to him.[4] Marcantoni was initially charged with the murder. However, after being questioned by the police, the charges were eventually dropped, and the crime remains unsolved.

Involvement of the Pompidous

The death of Stevan Marković provoked many rumours, many suggesting the existence of group sex photos with Madame Pompidou. Pompidou was then running his campaign for presidency and wanted to dispel them as soon as possible. He formally told the public that all the talk concerning the Marković affair were rumours.[3] Pompidou himself accused Louis Wallon and Henri Capitant of using the French espionage service SDECE to set him up. He admitted that he and his wife had been at parties with Marković and Delon. Some claimed that Pompidou ordered Marković's murder in revenge for the supposed photos of his wife. Even though he claimed the woman in the photos was a prostitute who simply greatly resembled his wife, the rumours would still hurt his campaign.[2] After he nevertheless won the 1969 election, he named Alexandre de Marenches as the head of the SDECE with an order to reform it.

According to some, the Marković affair was merely a ploy to damage Georges Pompidou's reputation by attacking the public image of his wife. Later, information showed that it was not Madame Pompidou in the photos but a prostitute who had been hired by a former police chief, Lucien Aimé-Blanc, who had long been involved with the SDECE. Aimé-Blanc claimed in his memoirs that an anonymous friend asked him to produce a prostitute who was blonde and in her forties, who was then used as Madame Pompidou's lookalike and photographed in compromising positions with another woman.

Aftermath

Bernard Violet wrote Les Mystères Delon, a book about Alain Delon, published in 2000. It was the first book in French legal history to have been banned before it was officially allowed to be sold, allegedly because Delon, the one of few remaining person associated with the affair to be still alive, did not approve of it. However, it was still sold in France.[1]

References
  1. Henley, Jon (2000-09-30). "Nervous publisher sneaks biography of Delon into shops". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-05-21.
  2. Malcolm Anderson, In Thrall To Political Change: Police And Gendarmerie In France. (Oxford: Oxford, 2011), 237.
  3. Paul Ghali, "Marković Affair: Paris 'Dolce Vita' A web of Murder, Sex and Politics" The Pittsburgh Press, April 14, 1969.
  4. Judy Klemesrud (1970-08-16). "The French Think He's Good When He's Bad". New York Times. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.