He “looked like everything except a man who (is going to) commit suicide,” said deputy Gaston Flosse, one of the last people to have seen Robert Boulin alive, during his hearing. However, when the body of the Minister of Labor was found in a pond in the Rambouillet forest on October 30, 1979, the investigation concluded that the politician had killed himself.
Since then, the numerous uncertainties surrounding the death of Robert Boulin have continued to relaunch the investigation. Monday June 29, the Nanterre judicial court appointed three investigating judges from the “cold cases” unit to take over the case. Several people close to the minister still consider it today to be a murder disguised as suicide.
At the time of his death, Robert Boulin was 59 years old and extremely influential on the political scene. A resistance fighter during the Second World War, he was a minister under three presidents: Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. He is even expected to be appointed prime minister during the latter’s mandate.
On Monday October 29, 1979, after a day of work, Robert Boulin left his ministry in the afternoon. He goes to his apartment in Neuilly-sur-Seine, driven by his driver to whom he gives leave once he arrives. The minister then took the road towards Montfort-l’Amaury, in Yvelines, where he was seen in a car, accompanied by two men.
Inconsistencies in the investigation
The next morning, at 8:40 a.m., his body was discovered in a pool barely 60 centimeters deep by the Yvelines motorcycle brigade, in the Rambouillet forest. According to the report, the man is on his knees with his face submerged in water. His vehicle was found nearby, in which a note had been left on the dashboard. “Kiss passionately (with the spelling mistake, Editor’s note) my wife, the only great love of my life. Courage for the children. Boby,” we can read on the letterhead of the Ministry of Labor.
The autopsy quickly concluded that it was suicide by taking a large dose of anxiolytics, leading to drowning. But inconsistencies lead those close to the minister to question this assertion. Several people, including the Prime Minister at the time, Raymond Barre, assured during their hearing that they had been informed of the death of Robert Boulin during the night, and not in the early morning.
Furthermore, the first autopsy turned out to have been botched and no examination of the skull was carried out. The report also notes, thanks to cadaveric lividities, that the man was on his back at the time of his death, and not in the position in which he was found. His body could therefore have been moved to the pond after his death.
Photos taken at the time of the body’s discovery, where we see the man’s swollen face, with numerous bruises, prompted the family to request a second autopsy in 1983. The latter revealed several fractures on the former minister’s head, which cast doubt on the possibility of suicide. Some major evidence has also disappeared, such as blood samples or lungs, which are essential to confirm drowning.
Farewell letters
Despite these inconsistencies, the courts dismissed the case in 1991, rejecting the family’s complaint for homicide. A decision confirmed the following year on appeal, then by the Court of Cassation. Suicide remains the avenue retained by the courts, which rely on witnesses describing Robert Boulin as depressed in the days preceding his death. At that time, the minister was at the heart of a controversy linked to the acquisition, in 1974, of land whose seller was involved in contentious real estate transactions.
In addition, in the week following the death of the politician, the media, some of his friends and advisors had received a letter, signed by him, and beginning with: “I have decided to end my life. » The minister’s daughter, Fabienne Boulin-Burgeat, is surprised that her father’s DNA was never found on these missives.
According to her, there is little doubt: Robert Boulin was the victim of a political assassination. A contender for Matignon, he could have been considered embarrassing for his competitors. Many names were circulated, notably right-wing figures of the time, without ever being worried. Other theories suggest that the minister could have held sensitive information on political-financial matters and that his assassins would have wanted to silence him.
Today, justice has neither confirmed an assassination nor validated the suicide theory. Recent expert assessments having weakened the conclusions of the 1979 report, the Boulin affair is therefore experiencing yet another, and perhaps final, twist by joining the pole of “cold cases”.
