Public enemy number one is behind bars in November 1975, but even the bars of La Santé prison, where he has been languishing for two years already, do not padlock him. The criminal with an extensive pedigree, wanted in the United States to carry out and accused of multiple armed attacks in France, had little taste of the pen of L’Express journalist Jacques Derogy. The article on the “Willoquet-Mesrine duo” enraged the country’s most famous repeat offender. “Neither masterminds, nor justices of the peace, nor even bosses, the fugitive Jean-Charles Willoquet and the inmate Jacques Mesrine are in line with the adversaries of the ex-inspector Roger Borniche, Pierrot le Fou and Emile Buisson, writes Derogy. Rather desesperados (sic) of the underworld as prototypes of the new generation of crime.” And to put the pen in: “Fanatics of détente, whose existence made of hazardous associations and escapes always started again, is a perpetual flight forward. Terrors who have adopted the mores of political terrorism [que la prison] united with life and death.
In his cell, Jacques Mesrine fumes and demands the typewriter that the prison authorities had confiscated from him the previous month. “Derogy, to write an article like the one you signed; you have to be neither a man, nor a journalist… but quite simply a filthy slut.” The threats are made throughout the mail posted to 25 rue de Berri. “Don’t be surprised if some of my friends come to ask you for accountability,” continues Mesrine. “If I were near you, be sure that word by word I would know everything you got into your face. You can always file a complaint for threats. The problem is that a piece of paper has never been used as a bulletproof vest.”
The Express
© / The Express
Ironically, it was the prison director who took the liberty of sending the mail, as a security measure, he said. “I thought above all about the safety of Mr. Derogy,” pleads the vague master. The subject is taken seriously at L’Express, which has its next front page on November 17, with a large portrait of Jacques Mesrine: “From his health cell, the killer threatens L’Express”. The public enemy will be condemned for this threatening letter, and will have his visits to Health suppressed, as well as the possibility of writing and receiving mail. Farewell, love letters to Jocelyne Deraiche. Mesrine in “secret”. Three years later, one morning of May 8, 1978, he escaped from La Santé at the wheel of a Renault 20. Paris Match met him the following year. Does he have scores to settle? He replies: “I’m not interested in taking revenge on certain journalists, like Derogy or Roberto from “Minute”. My best revenge was to leave the cage.”