Jacques Faure

Jacques Marie Alfred Gaston Faure (2 March 1904 – 9 April 1988) was a French Army general and skier. He was the leader of the French national Olympic military patrol team in 1936 which placed sixth and in 1961 one of the masterminds of the Algiers putsch. Biography Jacques Faure was born on 2 March 1904 in Bordeaux, Gironde department. He was the son of colonel that was killed during World War I and grandson of a general. During his service in the army he was a chasseurs alpins soldier and a paratrooper. He passed the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr (ESM). In October 1927 he joined the 13th Chasseurs Alpins Battalion in Chambéry, where he became leader of a ski reconnaissance platoon from 1930 to 1931, and afterwards Captain. Meanwhile, he visited the high mountain school École de Haute Montagne (EHM) in Chamonix in 1930. From 1932 to 1938 he was commander of the French military ski team, and was French Champion in military skiing the same years. During this period he led the Olympic team in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In 1938 he was transferred to the general staff of the 64th Alpine Division. World War II During World War II he was attaché in the General Staff of the High Mountain Brigade from 1939 to 1940 under command of Émile Béthouart, who was expedition corps leader in Narvik, Norway. After the Second Armistice at Compiègne he was transferred to London, Great Britain, and afterwards General Charles de Gaulle ordered him back to France, where he served at the ESM Saint-Cyr. In 1940 he was co-founder of the Jeunesse et Montagne (JM), a youth organization of the French Air Force. From November 1940 to 1942 he was stationed in Morocco, afterwards until March 1943 in Algiers, Algeria. Back to Europe, he served as deputy commander of the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment (1er RCP) in Italy. In the autumn of 1944 he became Lieutenant-colonel and commander of the 1er RCP, then deployed in the Vosges Mountains until February 1945.