The French woman behind the downfall of many African politicians

Intelligence is certainly vital in politics and leadership in general and has always been used. Spies are the key actors and they are sent by the leader of one camp to obtain information on their rivals. In African history, the seminal book Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (1960) by Guinean writer Djibril Tamsir Niane captures the tactic used by Sundiata, the king and hero in the Mali Kingdom to “milk” intelligence from his opponent Sumaoro. The former sent a young lady who seduced the latter into revealing the magic that could lead to his defeat. A plan was then set in motion to bring about the downfall of the giant. Female spies have been used for the orchestration of the demise of many great personalities including politicians or artists of high calibre. In Africa, a French woman, popularly known as Madame Claude, made history in that regard. She ran a “high class” brothel that sent girls to glean intelligence from politicians, several of whom were subsequently assassinated.

Madame Claude was born Fernande Grudet in July 1923 in Angers (Western France). In 1950, she left her humble beginnings behind and settled in Paris where she changed her name to Claude and became involved in the sex trade, an activity through which she met and befriended violent men and hardened criminals. Some of those tough guys were the product of post-World War II France. She later put in place a circle of young girls who were remarkably beautiful and promoted romantic involvements between them and high profile personalities. Approximately 25 girls constituted her regular squad of workers, and many others occasionally offered their services.

Madame Claude was said to have approximately 500 girls working for her. In Call-girl du Tout-Paris (2021) by Patricia Herszman, who herself worked for Madame Claude, she writes that some of the girls did that job because they were very poor but extremely pretty, and adds that the job was risky since certain girls were killed on the “job” by their clients. The majority of those male clients were also the victims and hailed from various areas: an American top politician, Arab kings and princes, movie and music stars and African influential politicians and presidents. Madame Claude used to boast that she was the best maquerelle (brothel keeper) of the century and that her job meant “making the vice beautiful”, by selecting the most attractive girls in Paris. She is generally referred to as “the most famous pimp in France”. The term “call girl” is said to have originated from Madame Claude’s business, since the connections were initiated with phone calls that ensured privacy and comfort for the male clients.

She became so influential that the French secret service hired her services. She operrated as an agent with the code name “Violette”. The girls practised what was called “confessions sur l’oreiller” or “pillow talk”, which means gathering information/intelligence with the trust generated by intimacy. When the girls were sent to key African politicians, big shots in the judiciary, diplomats, justice, ministers, high raking military and police officers, as well as presidents, they indulged in pillow talk. The girls were debriefed by French secret agents once they had spent some time with their clients. This type of intelligence gathering led to one of the most unfortunate cases that shook the arena of resistance and radicalism in Africa: the assassination of the first president of Chad, François Tombalbaye on 13 April 1975. The relations between Tombalbaye and France were sour since he was appalled at the fact that France paid no attention to the realities in African countries, and only France’s interests counted.  The root of the tragedy lay in the fact that while he was being intimate with one of the girls, the former president mentioned that he was working towards severing all ties with France. A little while after that “fatal” mistake, President Tombalbaye was shot dead in a coup led by soldiers, as political scientist Éric DÉNÉCÉ, the director of the French Center for Research on Intelligence, mentioned in an interview aired by the TV program Un jour un destin. The researcher stated that Madame Claude’s call girls were used to keep post-independence Francophone Africa under French control.

Such betrayals, which contributed to changing the political scene in Africa and other continents, could not go unpunished and Madame Claude ultimately ran into trouble with the law. When former French President Georges Pompidou, who condoned and used the activities of this gang of spies for the political interest of his country died in 1974 and Giscard d’Estaing took over, Madame Claude was accused of tax fraud, and her organization dismantled. She was jailed for some time and later fled to the US. She eventually returned to France where she lived clandestinely. She died in 2015 and her life provided the basis for movies like Madame Claude (1977), directed by Just Jaeckin. Recent publications are emerging on her and one of them is Madame Claude: le parfum du secret (2022) by French writer Erwan L’ÉLÉOUET, a compilation of revelations on her.

Moussa Traoré is Associate Professor at the Department of English of the University of Cape Coast.