Paul Barril

Paul Barril (13 April 1946 in Vinay, Isère) is a former officer of the French Gendarmerie Nationale. He authored several books about his military career, touching sensitive political subjects of the Mitterrand era.

Barril was a gendarme until 1995. He was the second officer of the GIGN Special Forces unit for 10 years, before being involved in the creation of the Counterterrorist Cell of the Élysée during François Mitterrand's first mandate from 1981 to 1988. Since then, he has led several private security companies. He has been in the centre of controversies for his role in Africa, particularly in Rwanda during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 during which extremist Hutus mass exterminated hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.