Filming an Assassination

In September 1979 Pierre Goldman, French leftist intellectual, was assassinated in Paris. His killers (three gunmen who were heard speaking Spanish) have never been identified.

Today his shooting was reenacted, for a Canal + telefilm on the very spot where it took place--in front of the building pictured here. It's on the Place de l'Abbé-Georges-Hénocque in Paris's 13th arrondissement. It was impossible to get good pictures during the filming, so this was taken as the crew was packing up, including the telephone booth (!). The period cars were driven away.

The building is the same as in this earlier blip, in the mirror. It's at the bottom of our street, the Rue des Peupliers, on the right in this shot. A window in our fourth-floor rental is visible on the white building in the middle distance, just below the three set-back floors. (View it large)

Goldman (1944-79) led a chequered life, devoted in part to leftist causes, but he also committed robberies. Nonetheless he was honored in death by some 15,000 persons who followed his funeral.

One year ago: Notre Dame au Feu Rouge