Roger Auque

Auque was born in Roubaix, France, on 11 January 1956. His father was a Gaullist, while his mother (née Baudry) was a French Communist.^[2] Roger Auque identified with the French right and was a member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).^[2]

Auque began his career as a freelance reporter in the late 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War.^[2] He worked closely with members of Lebanon's Phalange political party during the war.^[2] He also became friends with Uri Lubrani, the Israeli governor of coordinator of South Lebanon security belt from 1983 to 2000.^[2]

Auque was arrested by Hezbollah in January 1987 after being suspected of espionage activity on behalf of the Israelis.^[2] He was one of the first Western journalists and espionage agents to be held by Hezbollah during the war.^[2] Auque was held with another French journalist, Jean-Louis Normandin, of Antenne 2 TV (present-day France 2).^[2] In a 2014 interview with Le Parisien, Normadin recalled their captivity, "We met in the trunk of a car in Beirut, later we have been freed together, on the same evening… He was a charmer… always keep smiling… [with] sincerity, enthusiasm, energy."^[2] Auque became a devout Catholic after receiving a Bible from one of his captors.^[2] Both Auque and Normandin were freed in November 1987 following negotiations and financial payments from then French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and Interior Minister Charles Pasqua.^[2]

Auque authored two books, including an autobiographical account of his captivity by Hezbollah. Ronen Bergman, an Israeli journalist, documented Auque's 1987 captivity in a chapter of his book, The Secret War With Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Power, which was published in 2008.^[2]

Roger Auque was sent to Rome as a reporter for RTL following his release.^[2] He also covered stories in the Middle East, Africa, and Yugoslavia. He authored pieces on Israeli affairs for several French magazines, including Le Figaro Magazine, Paris Match, and VSD.^[2] He covered the Iraq War from Baghdad for Yediot Aharonot using the pen name, Pierre Baudry (Baudry is his mother's maiden name).^[2] He worked in Baghdad until 2006 when he returned to Beirut for two years.^[2]

In 2008, Auque returned to France to pursue politics and diplomacy. He was elected a Paris municipal councilor in 2008 as a member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).^[2] Auque served as the French Ambassador to Eritrea from 2009 to 2012.^[2] He became friends with the Israeli Ambassador to Eritrea, Guy Feldman, during his tenure.^[2]

Roger Auque died from brain cancer on 8 September 2014, at the age of 58. He had been treated at Val-de-Grâce military hospital during his illness.^[2][3] He revealed in a book published posthumously in 2015 that he had been a Mossad agent.^[4][5]

He is survived by his wife, Danette Landry (nee Stanislaw) and is the father of Vladimir Auque, Carla Auque and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.^[6][7]

His daughter Maréchal-Le Pen was a member of the National Front party. She was born in 1989, to Yann le Penn, daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, and was raised within Yann's marriage to Samuel Maréchal, a fact only revealed publicly in 2013 in a book by Christine Clerc titled Les Conquérantes.^[8] In 2012, Maréchal-Le Pen was elected France's youngest MP ever.^[9] Marion Maréchal sued French weekly newsmagazine L'Express for a "serious invasion of her privacy," and won her case in April 2015.^[10][11][12]