Jacques Mesrine - Return To France: 1972-1977

Return To France: 1972-1977

By the end of 1972 Mesrine had returned to France where he resumed robbing banks. On March 5, 1973, during an argument with a cashier in a coffee bar, Mesrine brandished a revolver and seriously injured a police officer who tried to intervene. He was arrested 3 days later. In May, he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment – which, considering his record, was lenient for the time and place – to be served at La Santé maximum security prison where escape was thought to be impossible. In a plan likely formulated even before his arrest, Mesrine took a judge sentencing him on another matter hostage with a revolver (recovered from the courthouse lavatory where it had been hidden by an accomplice) and escaped. After being at large for four months, he was arrested in his new Paris apartment on September 28, 1973, on information supplied by an associate who wanted a reduced sentence. Mesrine was returned to La Santé where he covertly wrote and smuggled out an autobiography, titled L'Instinct de Mort ("Killer Instinct"), in which he claimed to have committed upwards of forty murders, (thought by some to be a considerable exaggeration). The publication of Mesrine's book resulted in France passing a "Son of Sam law", a law designed to keep criminals from profiting off the publicity of their crimes.