Death of Robert Boulin in 1979: Nanterre cold case unit reopens investigation
The Boulin file, reopened in 2015, is now entrusted to the cold case unit of Nanterre. His daughter Fabienne has been fighting for nearly 50 years to establish the truth.
The Boulin case in the hands of unsolved crime specialists
According to RFI, the file concerning the death of minister Robert Boulin, which occurred in 1979, has just been transferred to the cold case unit of the Nanterre court, a unit specialised in criminal cases without final judicial resolution.
In 1992, the judiciary had officially adopted the suicide thesis. But over the decades, troubling elements and new testimonies have progressively undermined this conclusion, pointing suspicions towards a possible political assassination. The context invoked is that of the rivalry between Jacques Chirac and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing — what observers have termed the "war of the right" — which characterised the French political landscape at that time.
The file had been reopened for the first time in 2015. Its transfer to the Nanterre cold case unit represents a new stage in a procedure that has been dragging on for nearly half a century.
Fabienne Boulin, daughter of the minister, is following this development with renewed hope. She has been waging a judicial and memorial battle for years so that the truth about her father's death is established. This fifth and final episode of the RFI series dedicated to the case traces this wait and the question that remains open: will 2026 finally be the year of a judicial resolution?
Benoît Collombat, director of Radio France's Investigation Unit, for his part expresses "the hope that judicial truth is finally rendered", emphasising the symbolic and historical significance of a case that touches on the heart of power struggles in the Fifth Republic.
Source: RFI