Editing Jacques Mesrine (section)

==Escape from La Santé==
''La Santé'' was seen as escape proof. In his escapes from his Canadian prisons, Mesrine had required little more than wire cutters and a very high degree of audacity. During this incarceration, however, he faced security far better than any he had defeated before. A report noted that Mesrine had been seen doing exercises in his cell and was behaving like a man who had received good news. On 8 May 1978, he produced a gun, stole keys and, with François Besse (a highly accomplished escaper in his own right), and another man, Mesrine got out of a cellblock and into a fenced-off yard walkway. They had a grappling iron with them and Mesrine forced some workmen with an extending ladder to bring the ladder along. The trio unlocked a yard gate in an inner wall; an armed guard was taken by surprise at his post. The men then reached an isolated part of the 14 metre (46&nbsp;ft) high exterior wall (which would have presented a considerable challenge without the ladder). They hooked the grappling iron onto the top of the ladder and slid down the rope. The third man over the wall was shot dead by police in the street outside. Mesrine and Besse hijacked a car and evaded the police cordon; they had become the first men to escape from La Santé.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.directmatin.fr/racines/2014-10-19/le-jour-ou-mesrine-sest-evade-de-la-prison-de-la-sante-693308|title=Le jour où Mesrine s'est évadé de la prison de la santé|date=19 October 2014 |access-date=7 April 2018}}</ref>{{Dubious|date=November 2019}}

===Mesrine as fugitive===
Mesrine and Besse robbed a Paris gunsmith four days after their escape from La Santé. On 26 May 1978, the duo robbed the [[Deauville]] Casino of 130,000 francs, but the police arrived as they exited. Around 50 shots were exchanged and Mesrine was wounded, but the duo made a getaway. Mesrine and Besse eluded the subsequent massive sweep of the area by taking a farmer and his family hostage and forcing him to drive them to safety. Subsequently, the kidnapping of a banker netted them 450,000 francs in ransom. Despite his position as "French public enemy number one" (''l'ennemi public numéro un''), Mesrine was featured on the cover of the 4 August 1978 ''[[Paris Match]]''. In an interview inside, he threatened the Minister of Justice. By remaining at large in the Paris area, despite his notoriety, Mesrine appeared to be making a fool of the law and the state; the ''Paris Match'' interview was the last straw. The police agencies hunting Mesrine were pressured for results from the highest echelons of government.

This proved to be difficult, not the least because of rivalry between the various agencies. The usual informants were of little use as Mesrine generally avoided contact with the criminal underworld. Moreover, he was adept at disguising his appearance and allaying suspicion from members of the public: he reportedly went for a drink with his neighbours and laughed when one said he "looked like Mesrine".<ref name="Carey Schofield 1981">{{Cite book |last=Schofield |first=Carey |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9068247 |title=Mesrine, the life and death of a supercrook |date=1980 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=0-14-005607-6 |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex |oclc=9068247}}</ref> Mesrine travelled to Sicily, Algeria, London, and Brussels, and back to Paris in November 1978, where he again robbed a bank.  Objecting to Mesrine's proposed kidnapping of a senior judge, and not sharing his desire for revenge against the system, [[:fr:François_Besse|François Besse]] disassociated with Mesrine and later disappeared. Besse was finally captured in 1994; he was paroled in 2006.<ref name="Carey Schofield 1981"/>