Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle (1922-26 December 1942) was a monarchist member of the French Resistance who was executed for assassinating Vichy French admiral Francois Darlan in Algiers in 1942.
Biography[]
Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle was born in Algiers, French Algeria in 1922, and he studied at the Lycee Stanislas in Paris, France after the French surrender to Nazi Germany on 22 June 1940. He took part in an anti-German student demonstration at the Arc de Triomphe on Armistice Day (11 November 1940), and he secretly made it back to his hometown of Algiers. On 8 November 1942, his friends took part in an anti-fascist putsch in Algiers during Operation Torch, and he regretted that his friends had not asked him to join them. After the North African colonial administrator Francois Darlan signed an armistice with the Allies, the American general Dwight D. Eisenhower allowed for Darlan to remain as governor, preventing Vichyist sympathizers from rising up in rebellion. Bonnier de La Chapelle and three friends decided to eliminate the fascist admiral, and Bonnier de La Chapelle shot him once in the face and once in the chest with a Ruby pistol in a corridor of his Palais d'Ete headquarters. He also shot his aide-de-camp in the thigh before being captured, and he claimed that he acted alone. Bonnier de La Chapelle was executed by firing squad on 26 December 1942, and the Court of Appeals in Algiers overturned the conviction on 21 December 1945, claiming that he had acted in the interest of the Liberation of France.