GIGN

The National Gendarmes Intervention Group, commonly abbreviated GIGN (French: Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale), is the French Gendarmerie's elite counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit. It is composed of 120 men, including 11 officers. It is considered to be one the world's best counter-terrorism units.

Its missions include the arrest of gunmen, in particular those taking hostages, counter-terrorism, including airplane hijacking, or prevention of mutiny in prisons.

It is headquartered in Satory, west of Paris.^[1] Along with the EPIGN and the GSPR it forms the GSIGN (Groupement de Sécurité et d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, Grouping of Security and Intervention of the National Gendarmerie).

History

After the tragic events of the Munich massacre during the Olympic Games in 1972, and a prison mutiny in Clairvaux the next year, France started to study the possible solutions to extremely violent attacks, under the assumptions that these would be extremely difficult to predict and deflect.^[2]

In 1973, the GIGN was created as a permanent force of men trained and equipped to respond to these kind of threats while minimising risks for the public and hostages, for the members of the unit, and for the attackers themselves. The GIGN became operational on the first of March, 1974, under command of Lieutenant Christian Prouteau.

Ten days later, a deranged person was successfully stopped in Ecquevilly, validating the techniques of the unit and proving its necessity. Originally, GIGN was relatively small, starting out with 15 operatives. This number would increase to 48 by 1984, 57 by 1988, and 87 in 2000

Structure

A training assault of GIGN on a TGV train.

The GIGN is divided into a command cell, an administrative group, four operational troops of twenty operators, an operational support troop including negotiation, breaching, intelligence, communications, marksmanship, dogs and special equipment cells. ^[4] The special equipment group equips the unit with modified and high-tech equipment, by either selecting or designing it. GIGN is used about 60 times each year. ^[5]

All members goes through a training which includes shooting, long-range marksmanship, airborne course and hand-to-hand combat techniques (Krav Maga). Members of the GIGN are widely regarded as having some of the best firearms training in the world.^[6] It is for this reason that many of the world's special operations and counterterrorist units conduct exchange programs with the GIGN.^[7] Most of the GIGN volunteers are family men rather than the supermen which the media often makes them out to be. Members never say GIGN but instead say "the group." Mental ability and self-control are important in addition to physical strength. Like most special forces, the training is stressful with a high washout rate of only 7-8% of volunteers making it to the training process. GIGN members must be prepared to disarm suspects with their bare hands.^[8]

There are two tactical specialties in the group : HALO/HAHO and divers. Members learn several technical specialties among police dogs, breaching, long-range sniping, negotiation, etc.^[9]

[edit] Operations

Since its creation, the group has taken part in over 1000 operations, liberated over 500 hostages, arrested over 1000 suspects, and killed a dozen terrorists. The unit has seen two members killed in action, and seven in training, since its foundation, and two of its dogs in action and one in training.^[10]

Past actions include:

• The liberation of 30 children from a bus captured by the FLCS (front de libération de la côte somalienne, "Somali Coast Liberation Front") in Djibouti in 1976.
• Planning the liberation of diplomats from the French embassy in San Salvador in 1979 (the hostage-takers surrendered before the assault was conducted).
• GIGN commandos were instrumental in regaining control during the Grand Mosque Seizure, in November and December 1979.
• Arrest of a Corsican commando in Fesch Hostel in 1980.
• Liberation of hostages of the Ouvéa cave hostage taking in May 1988.
• Protection of the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville.
• In December 1994, the liberation of the 164 passengers of Air France Flight 8969 in Marignane. The plane, hijacked by four GIA terrorists that wished to destroy the Eiffel Tower, had been completely mined, and three passengers had been executed during the negotiations with the Algerian government. The mission was widely publicized.
• Arrest of Bob Denard in 1995 in Comoros.
• Operations in Bosnia to arrest persons indicted for war crimes.

The GIGN was selected by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to teach the special forces of the other member states.

[edit] GIGN leaders

• lieutenant (Lieutenant) Christian Prouteau : 1973-1982
• capitaine (Captain) Paul Barril : 1982-1983 (Interim)
• capitaine Philippe Masselin : 1983-1985
• capitaine Philippe Legorjus : 1985-1989
• chef d'escadron (Squadron leader) Lionel Chesneau : 1989-1992
• capitaine Denis Favier : 1992-1997
• chef d'escadron Eric Gerard : 1997–2002
• chef d'escadron Frédéric Gallois : since 2002

[edit] In fiction

• GIGN is one of the playable counter-terrorist skins in the games Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, and CounterStrike: Source.
• GIGN is also present in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown. In the Rainbow Six games, an ex-GIGN operative, Louis Loiselle, was transferred to Rainbow.
• In the expansion to the video game SWAT 4, characters are able to wear a GIGN uniform.
• A former GIGN member appears as the leader of a private security unit in the 2005 film The Island.
• A member of GIGN is assassinated by a radical right-wing political faction in the anime Noir.
• In the game, Soldier Front, Players are able to choose one of the world's counter-terrorism groups as their main character during game-play. One of the counter-terrorism characters is a GIGN officer.