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Gilles Perrault is a left-wing French writer and journalist. He attended the Collège Stanislas de Paris and then studied at the Institut d'études politiques, eventually becoming a lawyer, a profession he worked in for five years.
After the success of his essay 'Les parachutistes', inspired by his military service in Algeria, he became a journalist and wrote articles about Nehru's India, the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the problems of African Americans in the United States. He then investigated less well-known aspects of World War II.
Le Secret du jour J won a prize from the Comité d'action de la Résistance and was an international bestseller. L'Orchestre rouge was even more successful. In 1969 Perrault published a spy novel, Le dossier 51.
In 1990 Perrault published Notre ami le roi about the regime and human rights abuses of Hassan II, at the time king of Morocco who had until then been reported positively because of his close relations with the Western world. Perrault's book Le Garçon aux yeux gris was adapted by André Téchiné for the film Les Égarés.
In 2008 Perrault and his publisher Fayard were found guilty of defamation against the Marseille police in the book L'ombre de Christian Ranucci covering the Christian Ranucci affair. Perrault was fined 5000 euros and his editor an equal sum, a decision confirmed on appeal in 2009. The appeal court also granted 10000 euros in damages to each of the four policemen defamed.
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