Macron's top bodyguard recounts Paris attacks horror in novel

By day, he protects French President Emmanuel Macron. By night, he pens crime novels, drawing on battling gangs and terrorist attacks.

"I'd wanted to write for a long time," Georges Salinas, head of the Security Group for the Presidency of the Republic (GSPR) said in an interview.

He had the revelation in 2015 when, in a previous post as a senior Paris police officer, radical gunmen and suicide bombers staged the worst attack on Paris since World War II.

"I realised that, in the end, writing was something that did me good. It's an outlet," he said.

Salinas, who has written three books since 2019, mainly in his spare time, spoke to AFP just after the release of his latest novel, "Par le verbe, par le glaive" ("By the Word, by the Sword").

"This novel is also about remembering, not forgetting," said the 64-year-old, who has worked with Macron since 2019.

On November 13, 2015, Salinas led a police assault at the Bataclan concert hall, the deadliest attack of the night. The coordinated attacks claimed the lives of 130 people and injured hundreds more at the Bataclan, in bars and restaurants, and at the Stade de France stadium.

"During the entire operation, I stepped over the dead as I would have stepped over obstacles," said Salinas, then deputy head of the Search and Intervention Brigade (BRI), an anti-gang unit.

"It was only afterwards that it all came rushing back."

The novel captures the shock of the attacks as law enforcement agencies, rescue workers, and hospitals race to save lives.

The work of fiction is grounded in reality but Salinas is careful not to reveal too many details.

He knows the main protagonist of the book "quite well," he said with a smile.

Plunging into the world of international terror, the novel also evokes three attempted assassination attempts against "the president", whose name is never mentioned.

Might there be a parallel?

"I leave it to the reader to decide," said Salinas.

"What's certain is that I draw my inspiration from what I've experienced," he added.

Salinas gave the president a copy of the book, but did not know if Macron had read it.

He said part of his job was to predict worst-case scenarios.

"You inevitably develop friendly feelings," Salinas said. "But the main rule for a security officer is discretion. Then, we also have red lines — we should not violate his personal space too much."