La Carlingue - The French Gestapo of 93, Rue Lauriston

From 1940 to 1944, a gang of criminals led by Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny — a petty swindler allied with a corrupt detective — placed themselves in the service of the German occupier, spreading terror and chaos across the French capital. Protected by the Nazis, this criminal organisation entered history under the name of the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston, nicknamed the Carlingue. By far the most powerful, most feared and most hated of the French Gestapos, it was also the best organised.

Theft, looting, murder, trafficking, swindling of every kind — nothing escaped the rapacity of these gangsters, who could steal, kill or torture in broad daylight without fear of interference from a powerless police force. Acting as auxiliaries to the occupying forces, the men of the Carlingue also took part in counter-parachute operations and in the infiltration of Resistance networks, including that of "Défense de la France", linked to Geneviève de Gaulle, which would pay a heavy price. But far from confining themselves to Paris, Henri Lafont raised a small militia which, in the spring of 1944, ravaged the Dordogne and Corrèze under the pretext of helping the Germans combat the "terrorists" of the maquis.

The subject of wild fantasies and rumours, the history of the Carlingue remains shrouded in mystery. Drawing on testimonies and numerous archives — most of them previously unpublished — David Alliot retraces the activities of this murderous gang, which passed into the annals of crime in the most sombre fashion.