Vathaire affair
The Vathaire affair was a French politico-financial scandal in the 1970s during President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Hervé de Vathaire, the private financial director of Marcel Dassault, disappeared in July 1976 after taking eight million francs from Dassault's account and running away with Jean Kay, a mercenary. He was later captured, but most of the money was never recovered.
Background: Vathaire had just lost his wife to suicide and was ill with cancer, spending nights in bars. He met Kay through two women, Bernadette Roels and Danielle Marquet. Under Kay's influence, Vathaire decided to blackmail his boss, claiming to have a compromising tax file on Dassault. In June 1976, the two traveled to Miami, where Kay stole Vathaire's file and used it to threaten him in return.
On July 6, 1976, Vathaire went to a BNP Paribas branch and withdrew eight million francs from Dassault's account, placing the money in two bags, and fled with Kay. Vathaire was later found with part of the money; Kay vanished.
The scandal broke in the press on August 27, 1976, two days after Jacques Chirac resigned as prime minister. Vathaire returned to Paris from the Greek island of Corfu in early September 1976 and was arrested, but he did not have the stolen funds. The fate of the missing money remains unknown, with theories ranging from financing Lebanese Christian Phalangists in the civil war to funding right-wing burglary networks, including links to the August 1976 Nice burglary of the Société Générale.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:21 (CET).