Action Directe (armed group)

Action directe
Dates of operation	1979–1987
Active region(s)	France

Action directe (AD) was a French revolutionary group which committed a series of assassinations and violent attacks in France between 1979 and 1987. Members of Action directe considered themselves libertarian communist who had formed an "urban guerrilla organization". The French government banned the group.

Action directe was set up in 1977 by two other groups, GARI (Groupes d'Action Révolutionnaire Internationalistes, revolutionary internationalist action groups), and NAPAP (Noyaux Armés pour l'Autonomie Populaire, Armed Core Groups for Popular Autonomy), as the "military-political co-ordination of the autonomous movement". In 1979, it was transformed into an "urban guerrilla organization" and carried out violent attacks under the banner of "anti-imperialism" and "proletarian defence". The group was banned by the French government in 1984. In August 1985, Action directe allied itself with the German Red Army Faction.

Action directe carried out some 50 attacks, including a machine gun assault on the employers' union headquarters on 1 May 1979 as well as attacks on French government buildings, property management agencies, French army buildings, companies in the military-industrial complex, and the state of Israel. They carried out robberies or "proletarian expropriation" actions, and assassinations, killing Engineer General René Audran, the manager of French arms sales, in 1985. They were also accused of Georges Besse's 1986 killing, a murder allegedly justified because he was the then head of the French automaker Renault. However, they denied it during their trial. Besse was also former president of Eurodif nuclear company, in which Iran had a 10% share. They also claimed joint responsibility for the 1985 bomb attack carried out by the Red Army Faction at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, which killed two people.

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