Bonnot Gang

The Bonnot Gang (La Bande à Bonnot) or The Tragic Bandits (Les Bandes Tragiques) was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium during the late Belle Époque, from 1911 to 1912. Composed of individuals who identified with the emerging illegalist milieu, the gang used new technology, such as cars and repeating rifles not then available to the police.

The press originally referred to them as simply "The Auto Bandits," as they carried out the first motorized robberies and bank raids in world history. The group also earned the moniker "Les bandes tragiques" from the press due to a sense of the group's "desperate courage," who were painted as tragic-comic figures for their working-class origins and espoused anarchist politics.^[1] But ultimately the gang became known by the title of "The Bonnot Gang" after Jules Bonnot gave an interview at the office of Le Petit Parisien, a popular daily paper. Bonnot's perceived prominence within the group was later reinforced by his high-profile death during a shootout with French police in Choisy-le-Roi.

While many of the gang's members originated from regions across France and Belgium, such as Lyon, Brussels, Charleroi, Alais, they congregated in the city of Paris. Only some decades after the Commune of 1871 and the wave of anarchist terrorism of the 1890s, and not long after the General Strike of 1906 organized by the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), Paris was a hotbed of anarchist debate and organizing, with ongoing bitter disagreements between the anarcho-individualists (such as the illegalists) and anarcho-communists and -syndicalists.^[1]

The first robbery by Bonnot's Gang was on 21 December 1911 at the AB Branch of Société Générale Bank, located at 148 rue Ordener in the 18th Arrondissement of Paris. They shot a collection clerk in the neck and lung (yet he survived) and snatched his cash bags.^[2]

On 25 March 1912, the gang stole a de Dion-Bouton automobile in the Forest of Sénart south of Paris by shooting the driver through the heart.^[1] They drove into Chantilly, north of Paris, where they robbed the local branch of Société Générale Bank, and fatally shot two bank cashiers and severely wounded a bookkeeper.^[2]

Sûreté Chief Xavier Guichard took the matter personally. Even politicians became concerned, increasing police funding by 800,000 francs. Banks began to prepare for forthcoming robberies and many cashiers armed themselves. The Société Générale promised a reward of 100,000 francs for information that would lead to arrests.^[2]

• 
  Jules Bonnot, shot dead by law enforcement officers in France
• 
  Octave Garnier, executed by firearm
• 
  Raymond Callemin, executed by guillotine
• 
  Étienne Monier, executed by guillotine
• 
  André Soudy [fr], executed by guillotine
• 
  Edouard Carouy, nicknamed "Leblanc," sentenced to life in prison but died immediately after sentencing using a cyanide pill hidden in his shoe.

• Anarchism in France
• Anarchism in Belgium
• Illegalism
• Individualist anarchism
• Expropriative anarchism
• Propaganda of the deed
• La Bande à Bonnot, 1968 film
• Les Brigades du Tigre
• Les Vampires, 1915–16 serial
• Flavio Costantini, Italian painter who featured the Bonnot Gang in his works.
• Left-wing terrorism

• Cacucci, Pino. (2006) Without a Glimmer of Remorse. ChristieBooks. ISBN 1-873976-28-3.
• Imrie, Doug. (1994) The Illegalists. Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed.
• Merriman, John M. (2017). Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits: The Crime Spree that Gripped Belle Epoque Paris. Nation Books. ISBN 978-1568589886.
• Parry, Richard. (1987) Bonnot Gang: Story of the French Illegalists. Rebel Press. ISBN 978-0-946061-04-4. Available at libcom.org.

• Bandits en automobile, 1912 docudrama by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset
• Episode of Val-de-Marne TV "Histories of the Marne" dedicated to the Bonnot Gang

• Media related to Bande à Bonnot at Wikimedia Commons