FRENCH SPECIAL FORCES - GIGN

ABOUT

(Groupe d'intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale)

(National Gendarmerie Intervention Group)

Meaning -    soldiers who are allowed to arrest you

Motto -        "To enlist for life"

• Unlike many anti-terrorist units, GIGN is not only used for anti-terrorist operations but also in the arrest of dangerous criminals, countering barricaded suspects, quelling prison riots, VIP protection, and other high-risk police operations within France or former colonies.

• During the 35 years of GIGN’s existence, it has taken part in over 1,000 operations and rescued more than five-hundred hostages.

TRAINING

• Candidates undertake a one-week pre-selection screening followed, for those accepted, by a fourteen months training program which includes shooting, long-range marksmanship (it is often considered as one of the best shooting schools in the world), an airborne course and hand-to-hand combat training.

• Mental ability and self-control are important in addition to physical strength. Like for most special forces, the training is stressful with a high washout rate, especially in the initial phase – only 7–8% of volunteers make it through the training process.Weapons handlingCombat shooting and marksmanship training.

• Airborne courses, such as HALO or HAHO jumps, paragliding, and heliborne insertions.

• Combat/Underwater swimming, diving and assault of ships, hand-to-hand combat training.

• Undercover surveillance and stalking (support in investigating cases)Infiltration and escape techniques.

• Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and NRBC devices neutralisation sSurvival and warfare in tropical, arctic, mountain and desert environments, diplomacy skills, such as negotiating.

HOSTAGE RESCUE MISSION - LOYADA 

• The liberation of 30 French pupils from a school bus captured by the FLCS (Front de Libération de la Côte des Somalis, "Somali Coast Liberation Front") in Loyada, near Djibouti in 1976.

• GIGN group arrived in Loyada the group consisted of a group commander (lieutenant Prouteau) & 8 snipers, for the unit, the Loyada mission was the very first operation conducted outside France, snipers took a position in front of the palm grove.

• The bus was still parked in the same place, FLCS kidnappers were reinforced by 3 men from the Somali side than an order came to rescue the children.

• GIGN snipers shot a co-ordinated fire to kill all the kidnapper than Somali machine guns opened fire simultaneously, 2e REP legionnaires launched a frontal attack the legionnaires run forward under fire to eliminate the Somali machine guns.

• Two 2e REP groups seized the border, one group seized the bus &13e DBLE’s AMLs eliminated by fire the Somali machine guns –the mission was terminated.

• 7 Somali FLCS militants killed 1 Somali soldier killed (an official statement)1 girl was killed 5 children were wounded (2 of them seriously) the driver + female assistant were also wounded lieutenant was seriously wounded 1 boy was kidnapped to Somalia he was released a few days later.

OPERATION VICTOR

• In 1988 around thirty guys with machine guns in New Caledonia, a French-controlled island in the South Pacific, took some local cops hostage, loaded them into a cave, and then positioned a heavy belt-fed machine gun at the entrance of the cave.

• The GIGN deployed halfway across the globe in a matter of hours, rappelled in by helicopter in broad daylight, cleared out the machine gun with a flame thrower, shot up the place, freed the hostages.

• GIGN lost two guys but killed 19 terrorists and took 11 more into custody.

RAID ON AIR FRANCE 8969

• Their most high-profile raid came in 1994 when terrorists armed with AK-47s, hand grenades and dynamite hijacked a passenger plane in Algiers and threatened to crash it into the Eiffel Tower.

• The French were able to force the plane down in Marseille, where GIGN rolled up in a stair car and stormed the cockpit, engaging assault-rifle toting psychos at point blank range with 220 civilian lives hanging in the balance.

• All terrorists dead.  No civilian casualties.  No GIGN fatalities.

2008 SOMALI PIRATE ATTACK

• Capture of 6 Somali pirates and recovery of part of the ransom after ensuring that Le Ponant luxury yacht hostages were freed in the coast of Puntland in Somalia on the Gulf of Aden. In conjunction with French Commandos Marines (Naval commandos) in April 2008.
  

• 30 crewmembers were taken hostages, French commando marine and GIGN operating from the frigate Jean Bart and the cruiser Jeanne d'Arc moved in when the pirates attempted to flee in the desert. A sniper disabled the get-away vehicle, and the commandos were able to capture six men. 

GIGN -THE BEST

The GIGN was selected by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to teach the special forces of the other member states in hostage-rescue exercises aboard planes.

WEAPONS

Glock 19 9mm Parabellum

Heckler & Koch MP5

FN P90 Tactical 

Heckler & Koch G3 TGS