Prince Michel of Bourbon-Parma
| Prince Michel | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 4 March 1926 | ||||
| Spouse |
Princess Yolande de Broglie-Revel (m. 1951; div. 1999) Princess Maria Pia of Savoy (m. 2003) |
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| Issue | Princess Inés Prince Erik Princess Sybil Princess Victoire Prince Charles-Emmanuel Amélie Bogdanoff |
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| House | Bourbon-Parma | ||||
| Father | Prince René of Bourbon-Parma | ||||
| Mother | Princess Margaret of Denmark | ||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||
| Full name | |
|---|---|
| Michel Marie Xavier Waldemar Georg Robert Karl Eymar |
Prince Michel of Bourbon-Parma (Michel Marie Xavier Waldemar Georg Robert Karl Eymar; born 4 March 1926, Paris, France) is a decorated former soldier, racing car driver, French businessman and dynast of the deposed sovereign ducal House of Bourbon-Parma.
He is a son of Prince René of Bourbon-Parma (1894–1962) and his wife Princess Margaret of Denmark (1895–1992). Paternally, he is a grandson of Robert I, Duke of Parma (1848–1907), while through his mother he is a great-grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark (1818–1906). Prince Michel was also the younger brother of Queen Anne of Romania (1923-2016), and since August 2016 he is the only son of Prince René still living.
Prince Michel grew up in Paris, where his father worked for a propane gas tank manufacturer. In 1940, Prince Michel and his family fled the German invasion and left for New York, where his mother worked in a hat shop. Michel was enrolled in a Jesuit school in Montreal.
Three years later at age 17 he joined the U.S. Army with his father's permission and was appointed lieutenant. Serving in Operation Jedburgh, he was parachuted into Nazi-occupied France as part of a three-man sabotage team (with Maj. Tommy Macpherson and Sgt O. A. Brown) to operate deep behind German lines.
After the liberation of France Prince Michel was deployed to Indochina in order to fight against the Viet Minh. Dropped on August 28, 1945, by parachute he was captured the same day by the Vietnamese resistance, who kept him in captivity for 11 months, during which his group of six captives attempted several escapes, only to be recaptured. They were led from camp to camp through the dense jungle, bound together with strips of bamboo. Each lived on a bowl of rice a day. Toward the end of the ordeal, the men were asked to sign statements saying that they had been well treated, which they refused. Four of them were killed before the two survivors finally made it back to France due to the French negotiating a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh at the Geneva Conference. Prince Michel was one of only 3000 prisoners to survive of the 12,000 French prisoners taken by the Viet Minh. A chevalier of France's Legion of Honour, for his services during war, he was also awarded the British Military Cross and the Croix de guerre.
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