Gilles Perrault Obituary, In Loving Memory Of Gilles Perrault

Gilles Perrault Obituary, Death –  Gilles Perrault, 92, died of a heart attack on Thursday after writing a harsh evaluation of Morocco’s King Hassan II titled “Our Friend the King” in 1990. Perault, born Jacques Peyroles, wrote various works over his lifetime. He began his career as a lawyer, then moved on to journalism before settling on a career in literature. Because of its critical study of Hassan II’s reign, his book “Our Friend the King” sparked a huge dispute between Rabat and Paris.
Gilles Perrault, whose novel “Le Pull-Over Rouge” sparked controversy about the death penalty in France, died on Thursday, according to his family. He was 92.
“I can confirm that he died last night, August 3rd, at the age of 92, from cardiac arrest,” a family member told AFP.

He was born Jacques Peyroles and worked as a lawyer for several years before becoming a journalist and later a novelist, writing under the pen name Gilles Perrault. He published “Le Pull-Over Rouge” (The Red Sweater) in 1978, calling into doubt the conviction of a man, Christian Ranucci, who had been executed by beheading two years before for the kidnapping and murdering of an eight-year-old girl in 1974. The novel provoked a heated debate regarding the death penalty, which France subsequently abolished in 1981.

Perrault was convicted twice of defaming police officers in connection with the case, once during an interview and again for content in another book on the subject.
He tried unsuccessfully for years to get Ranucci’s case reopened. “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” he told AFP in 2006, hoping for a re-examination. In 1990, he wrote “Notre Ami Le Roi” (Our Friend the King), a critically lauded work that shed light on Morocco’s 30-year reign of Hassan II. “The books of Gilles Perrault are markers for my generation,” stated Reporters Without Borders president Pierre Haski.