1974 French Embassy attack in The Hague

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1974 French Embassy attack in The Hague – a simple summary

Background
- The Japanese Red Army (JRA) was a militant group that wanted to overthrow governments and start a worldwide revolution. They carried out several attacks in the 1970s.

The embassy attack
- On Friday, September 13, 1974, three JRA members stormed the French Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands.
- The embassy’s ambassador and ten other people were taken as hostages.
- Dutch police officers entered the building and were shot at; two were seriously injured, and one was shot in the back.
- The attackers demanded the release of a jailed JRA member (Yatsuka Yamada, also known as Yoshiaki Yamada), one million dollars, and the use of a French airplane.
- Because the embassy is in a central part of the city, authorities chose to negotiate rather than mount a rescue operation.

Paris cafe attack connected
- On September 15, 1974, a separate grenade attack on the Le Publicis drugstore cafe in Paris killed two people and injured many others.
- This Paris attack was linked to the embassy siege, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility. Carlos the Jackal was later connected to the case.

End of the siege
- After two days of negotiations, the hostages began to be released.
- Around 10:00 am on September 17, France agreed to:
- release the jailed JRA member Furuya,
- pay about $300,000,
- allow the four terrorists and a Dutch-English crew to fly out on an Air France Boeing 707.
- The terrorists flew to Aden (South Yemen) for fuel, then to Damascus (Syria). They later had to give up their ransom and weapons, which were returned to the French Embassy in Damascus.
- The Dutch ambassador and other hostages were freed, and negotiators said the attackers were highly trained; the situation involved about 20 gunshots during the siege.

Aftermath
- France said its secret services would pursue the JRA internationally.
- Prinsjesdag (the Dutch budget day) was affected that year, with the monarch’s traditional ride replaced by a protected route.
- The JRA’s next major action was the 1975 AIA building hostage crisis in Malaysia.
- Several attackers were later arrested or tried in various countries; Carlos the Jackal faced trial for the Paris cafe attack in 2017 and received a life sentence. Some members remained at large for years before being captured.