‘Greatest Escapes with Arturo Castro’ Episode 9: High-Flying Nectarines

Mental Floss is partnering with FilmNation and iHeartPodcasts to bring you the transcripts for Greatest Escapes, a podcast hosted by Arturo Castro about some of the wildest escape stories across history. In this episode, writer, director, and producer extraordinaire Jay Martel soars into action with Arturo as they cover the high-flying trajectory of French gangster Michel Vaujour. Read all the transcripts here.

Arturo Castro: This is Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories of all time. Now, in this episode, we’re headed to Paris, you guys, for a bonkers jailbreak by a French gangster who declared “war on society.”

I’m Arturo Castro and I’m here with a wizard of the comedy world, my dear friend, and a man absolutely obsessed with short, short pants, Jay Martel.

[Theme]

Arturo: I’m joined by Jay Martel.

Jay: Yes!

Arturo: I gotta tell the audience that Jay catfished me–

Jay: What?

Arturo: –in the sense that when we—we sat for an interview, uh … for the head writer position of Alternatino and Jay showed up in like—a button down, and like, these nice pants, and then–

Jay: Oh no, not this.

Arturo: Yes. And then I never saw him wear pants ever again. Jay always showed up–

Jay: OK. This is a—this is a cultural language thing.

Arturo: OK, you just–

Jay: Uh, you’re—I wore pants to the office. They were just short pants. But in, in your mind–

Arturo: They were so short.

Jay: In Guatemala, I guess they don’t call short pants “pants.” They–

Arturo: Listen, listen. We do not show another man our thighs unless we mean business and you really…

Jay: And I was just throwing them out there in your face every day.

Arturo: For free, for free. I always say that Jay, like, always looks like he just missed his flight. You know what I mean? Like, he’s in the Atlanta airport. He f***ing had to go get that neck pillow and his f***ing flight left him. He’s just looking around looking like, “uh, f***.”

Jay: Always a little like rumpled and, yeah.

Arturo: A little bit. Just—just enough.

1. Chapter 1: Flying Lessons
2. Chapter 2: Background
3. Chapter 3: The Big Moment
4. Chapter 4: The Aftermath
5. Outro
6. Credits

Chapter 1: Flying Lessons

Arturo: All right. You ready for, uh, for a little escaping?

Jay: Yes, definitely.

Arturo: So today instead of a cell block, we’re gonna start on a launchpad. Ooh. And the year is 1985, which is the year I was born. Great year for babies. Am I right, Jay? It was so fantastic.

Jay: Well, whatever.

Arturo: Aha, OK. And we’re in Annecy in the Alps of Southern France. Now a woman, Lena Rigon, has started taking helicopter lessons from a guy named Guy, a flight instructor at a local airport.

Now, he didn’t think anything of it except that he noticed that she showed great commitment to learning. So in fact, she booked a hotel by the airport for a whole month, and she spent two or three hours every day practicing in the air with her instructor. As her teacher, Monsieur Guy felt like he was getting to know her pretty well.

For him, that apparently means remembering that she was blonde. I love Guy being like, “Yes, I know everything about her. She is, uh, blonde. ‘Zat is it.” Yeah. So that September, she took her flying exam and she passed with flying colors. Oof, wow.

Jay: Nice.

Arturo: And she got a 58 out of 60 required points, which I guess is enough. I don’t—dude, this is such a French way of scoring, isn’t it?

The rest of the world is like, “Hey, it’s 100,” and France is like, “No, I refuse, 60 is fine. Sixty is maximum. You would be a head of merde if you had any more than 60.”

This man is apparently close to death. This French man, uh… [laughs]

Jay: “I am dying and I will pass my flying exam.”

Arturo: It’s a French pirate in this uh, situation. You remember, Jay, that there was a sketch that we never quite made work about a French man who was unimpressed by everything and called everything “sh*t.”

Jay: Oh yeah.

Arturo: Yeah, “it is sh*t.”

Jay: Yeah, that was good.

Arturo: “This is sh*t,” uh, and then a robber comes into the restaurant where—where he is at and he’s like, “this gun, zees is sh*t.” You know? He saves the day.

Jay: I wonder why they didn’t let us do that.

Arturo: Maybe because we didn’t know how to f***ing end the sketch.

Jay: Or, or we sounded like pirates when we did French accents.

Arturo: That’s right. Because they were like, “You are all dying pirates in this.”

Jay: Well, what is going on?

Arturo: All right, so then Lena moved near Paris, where she joined a flight club at an airport, and started flying some light utility helicopters.

So Lena begins renting a helicopter every two weeks, and she gets to know the owner of the helicopter rental company, Claude. He described her as “a pretty little woman,” uh, “the sportsman type,” which is probably French for not curvy. I don’t know what the f*** that meant, Claude.

Jay: “Sportsman.”

Arturo: So Claude said that Lena took a liking to one helicopter in particular. She would come to his business twice a month and rent it for like, $300 an hour. Claude didn’t know it at the time, but Lena was practicing one very special skill, you guys, OK? Hovering with the helicopter just above the ground.

On May 27, 1986, Lena arrived with a friend: a man carrying a heavy duffel bag. Somehow, this didn’t raise any red flags for Claude. You know, was he oblivious? A little bit of an idiot?? Perhaps. Or maybe just very French. “I don’t know, I don’t care what you do.”

Anyhow, he rented her the helicopter as per usual.

Now obviously, Claude didn’t know what was in the bag. But today we do know. It was carrying … dun dun dun … a sub-machine gun!

Jay: What?!

Arturo: And it turns out, Lena had been hiding her real identity. Her real name was actually Nadine, and the day she’d been training for was finally here.

And when she took off, she flew low. Soon, the air traffic control lost contact with her. The French Air police tried to get radio response from the helicopter as it buzzed the rooftops. But Nadine wasn’t answering. No, no. She was flying 19 miles from the airport to La Santé prison in Paris—because she was gonna bust her husband outta jail!

Jay: Oh my God. Now I see how it all ties together with the theme of this podcast.

Arturo: Yeah, there you go.

Jay: Oh, OK. I’m so relieved.

Arturo: Sportsman, sportsman-woman, dead pirates.

Jay: Yeah. A bag—big bag.

Arturo: Big bags. Submachine gun flying low, you know? Classic. Can we take a moment and talk about the commitment it took to do this?

Jay: She must have really loved her husband. I mean, that’s—that’s what I’m getting from this.

Arturo: OK. Who the hell is her husband? Let’s figure this out. So his name was Michel Vaujour, right? He was a gangster who had declared as a teenager that he was gonna wage war against society. The—you know, the revolution remains strong in this one.

Jay: That’s a very common thing in—among teenagers. I mean, especially in France, I imagine is like, “f*** society. I’m going to burn it down.”

Arturo: They are incredibly good at striking in France. That is not even a joke. Every time they–

Jay: Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah.

Arturo: We could take a page out of their book for this.

Jay: If this was in France, I’d be striking right now for better wages for podcast co-host.

Arturo: Yeah, that’s right. None of us are getting paid, Jay. I’m getting copy, meal, and credit tops. Uh, yeah–

Jay: Oh my god, what? Oh, well, you should strike too. Let’s both strike.

Chapter 2: Background

Arturo: Alright, so: who was Michel Vaujour? To start with, he was an altar boy. No, like, literally—when he was a kid his parents sent him to live in a boarding school run by a local priest. Along with all the other church stuff, like guilt—guilt-inducing chores or whatever—the priest taught Michel how to climb, and shoot, and run cross country. Bro, is this like is this like a super alpha priest? Like–what the f***.

Jay: I dunno, like, this couple is like—is gonna take over the world, I think. I mean, she’s a sportsman type with who flies helicopters and he’s like, an all around athlete who shoots game? I mean …

Arturo: Yeah, but also my—my priest like always sounded like that French dying dude that you just did, you know like, a pirate–

Jay: Oh, OK.

Arturo: They couldn’t even, like, you know—walk properly. I didn’t know they were like priests that like, did like, rock climbing, you know?

Jay: If Jesus is at the top of that hill, they’re gonna climb that rock

Arturo: Yeah, that’s right. “On this mountain, I shall build my church.”

One person in the audience is gonna be like, “Oh, he studied Catholic–”

Jay: Yes. Yeah, you’re gonna get that one hardcore Catholic podcast listener. Congratulations.

Arturo: Thanks very much.

But for Michel, altar boy didn’t translate to being like, a rule follower, right? When he was 19, he started stealing cars whenever he wanted to take his girlfriend dancing. This f***ing guy. OK, making us all look bad. Good for you. Good for you. So usually they would leave the car in the same place that they found it, but after a while they started getting sloppy and just parked it right in front of his apartment.

So the next morning, Michel and his girlfriend were woken up by the sound of the police banging on the front door.

Jay: Poor planning. Everyone knows you don’t park a stolen car in front of your house.

Arturo: Yeah. So what do you—like, you’ve been stealing cars, Jay, there’s a knock at your door. Somebody says, “I am police.” What do you think? What do you do? What’s the first thing that you do?

Jay: Say, like, “I’m an idiot. And—and I deserve to be taken off to prison right now because–”

Arturo: That would be your way. That would be—And by the way, and by the way–

Jay: “And I’m gonna put on pants, let me put on my pants right now before you take me to prison.”

Arturo: Jay’s way would be like—“And by the way, I would like to confess to other crimes of myself and other people, just–”

Jay: I, uh … yeah.

Arturo: Cracking. Cracking immediately.

So I’ll tell you what Michel did, right? He dove out of the bedroom window to make his escape and left his girlfriend to face the police alone.

Jay: Cool. Cool guy.

Arturo: Now it’s real f***ed up like, leaving your girlfriend holding the bag like that.

Jay: Totally. Totally French.

Arturo: Yeah. That—right?

Jay: “Yeah, she can deal with it, you know.”

Arturo: I don’t even know that it’s French. This guy’s just like an early adopter of the f*** boy nature. He’s like, “not my problem.”

So how do you even justify it to her later? You know, like, “Hey, like, I’m sorry. Like—the thing is, there is a loud sound outside. I wanted—I was testing rock climbing with a priest–”

Jay: “I was actually going to, uh—go out the window and get a stolen car and drive it to another location. See?”

Arturo: So he’s a German French man now.

Jay: Oh god. Dammit. I knew I should have practiced my accents. You didn’t tell me this was a French story.

Arturo: I think we need to, yeah—I think we need to use our own accents from now on, Jay. The European nations are up in arms.

Jay: I  don’t think we’re gonna offend anyone by doing bad accents, personally.

Arturo: No, no, no. OK. It’s just—so listen. So she confessed, right? Michel was caught convicted and he was put away for two and a half years. Now, Michel thought his punishment was too harsh, and this is when he decided to start his war against society. When he got out, Michel was arrested again for the crime of driving without a license, and he ends up being convicted of 10 robberies over the years.

To be honest, I do think it’s kind of—I mean, I’m not advocating grand theft auto here—but it seemed like he was just a dumb kid, right? Like most of the time he put the car away, and–

Jay: Yeah. I mean, he’s still really young now, right?

Arturo: He was 19 the first time he got caught.

Jay: Oh God. OK. So yeah, there’s just no—yeah, you’re—you’re just crazy when you’re 19, right? I don’t know about you, but–

Arturo: Oh yeah, I was a nut job at 19. And it, uh, it hasn’t gotten any better. But, uh, no—but also, like, it doesn’t feel like people that go in the system, it like, rehabilitates them in any country, you know? So I guess that’s when he got really revolutionary with his crimes.

But prison, you know, they couldn’t hold him. They just could not hold Michel, right? He made his first escape when he joined the work crew of prisoners unloading trucks of supplies, right.

When he saw the chance, he bolted through the gap between the truck and the gate, and he made his way into the woods where he dodged the officers searching for him. Twice, he escaped by scaling prison walls, in 1973 and 1974.

In 1973, Michel and another prisoner pushed through a weak area of the fence and climbed the wall where they realized there was a blind spot for the guards. They went on a robbery spree until they got caught again.

What is it with these people that can’t just enjoy their prison break, you know?

Jay: You know, it just shows you that … I’m coming from a different place, but I—I always think, like, you get outta prison, just be cool for a little bit. Right?

Arturo: Just move to LA. Put on some shorts, man.

Jay: Move to LA, put on some shorts.

Arturo: Start a writer’s room.

Jay: And some flip flops maybe, you know? Yeah. Like, just relax. I—but … but it’s just like, “No, no.” I feel like he’s—he, Michel—was really trying to prove a point, right?

Arturo: He’s waging a war against society.

Jay: Yeah. I mean, he was just like, “I’m just gonna get out of this cage that you put me in and just do some more damage to this thing that I hate,” you know?

Arturo: Right, right, right. So in 1974, Michel shared a cell with a safe breaker named Gille—Gill. Can the overlords of pronunciation please come in and tell me how to pronounce his name.

CarlIt is pronounced Gille. It is pronounced Gille, but you can call him G.

Arturo: G. OK, f*** it. So in 1974, Michel shared a cell with a safe breaker named Gille, who became his best friend.

Now, the pair used one of Gille’s lock picking tricks to escape. They collected the red wax from Babybel cheeses to make an imprint of the key.

OK, Jay, your turn again. You got some wax. How are you gonna get that imprint? Also, I’m sorry. Again, French people, but that is the most French way of making a–

Jay: I know, I mean, the fact that they have Babybel cheeses like, in prisons. I mean, like–

Arturo: It’s so fancy.

Jay: Do you know what—what our prisoners would do? What prisoners in this country do for one Babybel cheese?

Arturo: And that was not the Camembert week, you know—that week was—it’s not as easy to get an imprint from Camembert.

Jay: It reminds me of like … I was listening—I was reading about World War I recently, and—one of the reasons the French troops were doing so badly is that they all drank a liter of wine every day.

Arturo: That was their allotted–

Jay: It was part of their ration, so–

Arturo: Um, as opposed to the Germans in World War II which were all hyped up on amphetamines.

Jay: Yeah, they were. Well, yeah, it was actually like both of those world wars were like a study of alcohol versus speed.

Arturo: Versus drug use.

Jay: Yeah, like speed. Speed will always win in a war by the way.

Arturo: Yeah. Weed does—weed does not do well in a war.

Jay: No, no.

Arturo: It’s everybody like, “What—what the f*** are we doing guys? Let’s just chill.”

Jay: Yeah. “Yeah, man, just mellow out and, you know, you—just get sloppy drunk on a bunch of red wine and just like if they put us in prison, we’ll just be eating cute little cheeses, you know?” Basically.

Arturo: That’s right. That’s gonna be great.

So Michel took the direct approach. So he and Gille memorized which one was the right key by watching their cell get unlocked every day. And once, when they were being put back into the cell, Michel bumped the guard and pressed his wax against the key.

Jay: Oh my god.

Arturo: Yeah, so using a file and part of a hacksaw, Michel and Gille, were able to take a piece of iron, a small piece of it, and duplicate the shape of the key–

Jay: Oh my god!

Arturo: –following the imprint of the wax and unlock his f***ing cell.

Jay: I’m beginning to thank this guy’s a genius. I mean, could you bump into someone and make—make a wax impression of their key? I don’t—that’s not in my skillset.

Arturo: I can’t confirm or deny that, uh, legally—I can’t tell you if I have done that before or not. No, but it is impressive. You know, it’s one of those, you know, classic tales of like, “wow, if you had just applied that genius to something else, like, what would you have contributed?”

Jay: Yeah, exactly. But he was put on earth basically to break out of prisons.

Arturo: That’s right. Some people, that’s their job.

Jay: He evolved like a hundred thousand years of human evolution led to this guy. Just, “I can break out at anything.”

Arturo: Any single thing. So in prison, after being arrested for another robbery, Michel held what one French newspaper called an “Intimate Ritual of Rebirth.” So he stripped naked, shaved, and used yoga to enter a trance that would kill the Mad Dog in him. And after that, he gave up tobacco, radio, and even his mattress, right?

So this guy was preparing for Burning Man. He did not even know it.

Jay: I’m waiting for what comes next, cause I know it’s—it’s not gonna be about yoga.

Arturo: Well, the fourth escape came in 1979 during a hearing for his crimes. Michel had been in prison for four years, and he had worked out a plan right? At the courthouse, during his hearing, Michel took the judge hostage at gunpoint.

Jay, if we were gonna smuggle a gun into a hearing, where would you hide it? Actually, I don’t wanna know. F*** it. Nope. Nope, nope.

Jay: Well, you, you asked so…

Arturo: I know what—I just know, like—this question was here and I’m like, “No, I know where he would hide it.”

Jay:  In the pocket of my shorts.

Arturo: Yeah. In his beautiful thigh pocket that he always carries with him. When it gets chilly you have one of those, like—you know, those pants that become shorts? What are they called?

Jay: Oh, skorts? No. Uh–

Arturo: Skorts? [laughs]

Jay: No. That’s—that’s something else. Uh, convertible shorts?

Arturo: Convertible shorts. Sure. We’ll go with that. And the convertible short people, if you wanna promote your sh*t on the show, you know, me and Jay and the Catholic guy will definitely buy your stuff.

Jay: What, we’ll definitely zip those up.

Arturo: Michel had actually sewn a pocket inside his underwear and took the gun out when he went to the bathroom before the hearing started. Now the thing is the gun wasn’t real. It was a dummy, carved out of soap and turned black with shoe polish.

Jay: Oh my God. This is like, uh, Take the Money and Run, a Woody Allen movie where, you know—it’s just … this is such a cliche. And I love that he can work in different mediums too. Like, he can branch out from wax into soap? I mean–

Arturo: Yeah. No, from cheese—from cheese to soap to wax. It’s like, this man does it all.

Jay: He did. It’s all just a means of escape. It’s up to him.

Arturo: Exactly. Now, once he was out, Michel reconnected with his old prison friend, Gille, the safe breaker. And he also met Gille’s sister, Nadine. Ah, now–

Jay: Ah, I see where this is going.

Arturo: Yep, yep, yep.

Nadine had also been locked up on three separate times for things like hiding stolen goods. So Michel and Nadine were basically a match for each other. They fell in love, and Michel started a life with Nadine and her daughter.

But that didn’t keep him out of trouble. No, no, Michel. Nothing keeps him down, you see. In this time behind bars, Michel had met a bunch of guys involved in organized crime. They reached him now that he was out again, and he got hired to help with a bunch of armed robberies.

So in March 1981, Michel gets arrested again, and this time Nadine was even grabbed as an accomplice. OK. This part is nuts! Her second daughter, the one with Michel, was even born that year while Nadine was in jail.

Jay: Oh my god. They had kids. They had kids!

Arturo: And the daughter escaped said prison at six months old. Very impressive. So–

Jay: Wait, wait.

Arturo: I’m f***ing with you. I’m f***ing with you.

Jay: Oh, OK. Jesus.

Arturo: Can you imagine?

Jay: Well if you consider a womb a prison, maybe–

Arturo: Yes. Well, they—she escaped at zero years old.

In 1982, with both of them behind bars, somehow Michel [and] Nadine arranged for a prison wedding. They met at a prison registry to sign the papers, and in the intimacy of the moment, Michel told her about his next plans for escape.

Jay: Oh my God.

Arturo: Nadine was released the same day, but Michel’s sentence was for 18 years. If they were gonna be together, they would need to work together to break Michel out of the most notorious prison in Paris: La Santé.

Jay: Ah, La Santé!

Arturo: La Santé.

Jay: Oh, not La Santé! They put him in La Santé?

Arturo: Yeah that’s right. Well it’s actually a prison—it’s well known for housing celebrities and VIPs at least—I mean, at least if you’re a fan of like–

Jay: Really?

Arturo: –well, if you’re a fan of French criminals, that is.

Jay: So if you were like OJ, you’d be put in La Santé?

Arturo: Yeah, exactly. You would be in La Santé. Now. Do any of these names sound familiar to you? Jean Genet, Carlos the Jackal, Bernard Tapie, Jérôme Kerviel, Jacques Mesrine? I’m f***ing up all these names. But, uh, how about–

Jay: The first couple I recognize.

Arturo: How about Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama?

Jay: Oh.

Arturo: Yeah, he ended up there in 2010.

Jay: Oh man.

Arturo: Apparently his excuse is he wanted the cheese. [Speaks Spanish]

Jay: One thing you can say about Manuel Noriega, he loved his cheese.

Arturo: He loved his cheese. Say what you will about him–

Jay: And narco trafficking.

Arturo: That’s right. Yeah. Say what you will about the man. The man had a taste for the fine things.

La Santé has actually been, uh, used to film numerous French gangster movies and there was—uh, there are French pop songs about the prison. Uh, I’m not, you know—I’m not sure if this was filmed there, but Un prophète, um—was an amazing French film about the rise of an inmate.

La Santé is still open today and it’s one of just three prisons in Paris. Now, it has a high security wing, but the security is known for being like, fairly lax, you know?

Jay: Mm-hmm.

Carl: Gentlemen, I need to, uh—I need to break in here and say, the name of the prison is “lay sahn-tay.” Le Sant

Arturo: Son of a b*tch, Son of a gun. Uh, so we’ve been told by our overlords in the sky, our producers there, it’s actually “lay sahn-tay.” So–

Jay: Ah, La Santé. Oh, I—I was really confused. I was confused that you were talking about La Santé.

Arturo: Yeah, that’s right. That you didn’t recognize–

Jay: Of course, of course. That’s where Jean Genet was. That’s where Carlos the Jackal was.

Arturo: Yes. I got it all wrong. Thank you, overlords in my sky.

So in 2000, La Santé’s chief medical officer published a book revealing what life was like inside. She described inmates piled on top of one another. Suicidal prisoners were left in chains and prisoners with archaic skin infections that had been eliminated in general society, but kept alive inside the prison.

Jay: Wait, archaic skin infections?

Arturo: I’m thinking like leprosy and such, probably.

Jay: Oh, OK. Yeah, that’s—that is archaic. Like, biblical.

Arturo: Yeah, it’s biblical. It’s like, “Yeah. So they have the bubonic plague. It’s kind of weird. Yeah. They have that like, weird skin condition where an angel of death comes to your house if you didn’t put the lamb’s blood in front of it.”

Jay: Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of those.

Arturo: Again we got—we got our Catholic people back.

Jay: Oh, we got him back … or not.

Arturo: So—or not. She also said that it was infested with rats and cockroaches, which I guess is to be expected.

Jay: Yeah.

Arturo: Now Michel—while Michel was serving time, he was not taking it easy. No, he was coordinating with Nadine and other friends on the outside, and over time, they came up with a plan.

Michel said that after studying the layouts of various prisons, he declared that the easiest way out of La Santé was to escape by air. Now, the layout made it safe to bring in a helicopter and hover in place where smokestacks blocked the view from the watch towers—meaning that a helicopter couldn’t be shot down by the guards.

Now, on the outside, Nadine wasn’t just sitting around waiting for his 18-year sentence to end. No sir. She was in on the plan. Michel was—had already escaped four times from prison, so they had to say, “Why not five?” and–

Jay: Five times is a–

Arturo: –five times is the prison charm, and this is where we’ll take a little break. To apologize to everybody that heard the pronunciation of La Santé.

Chapter 3: The Big Moment

Arturo:  Now we’re getting to the big moment: May 6, 1986. The day of … the escape! [echo]

I hope that Ben adds, like, echo after I say “the escape” or something godly like that.

Ben: Yeah, if whoever’s listening has heard the echo, then I have done my job.

Arturo: Thanks, buddy.

So that morning, Michel said he woke up early—at 6:00 a.m. He had four hours before the scheduled rendezvous with Nadine. Uh, that’s rendezvous for all you non-French speaking people.

After breakfast, the prisoners were let out for a morning walk in the prison yard. As he got outside, Michel looked up at the window of the prison building above him. And he saw … the signal. [echo]

Again, some echo. Which was actually pretty corny if you ask me. The signal was simply a white piece of cardboard stuck in the stairwell window. I mean, really? All this elaborate escape and they’re like “I don’t know just put some cardboard up. We’ve run out of budget for cool effects.”

But it meant that the helicopter was on its way. So in the yard, Michel spread out a towel on the ground, and started his yoga routine.

Eventually … huh? He heard the helicopter approaching, you guys! It’s like the guy you like, is like, looking at you at the party. You’re like, “oh my god, is he approaching? Is he coming this way?” That’s what he felt like. Just … in a much more heightened version.

At first it was a low rumble. And as it f***ing burst into the sky over the prison yard it became a roar that froze all the other prisoners in place.

Jay: I bet!

Arturo: Yeah, they’re like, “qu’est-ce que c’est? Qu’est-ce que c’est?!”

Now, the door to the helicopter open and it duffle bag flew out, crashing down into the prison yard. And that’s when Michel sprang into action. He rushed [to] the bag, ripped it open, dug out a pistol and pointed it at the prisoners and the guards in the yard, yelling, “Nobody move,” or whatever the French version of that is. And the prisoners that were already not moving, they’re like, “What do you mean?”

Jay: “We are not moving!”

Arturo: “ I’m doing yoga still!” There’s one confused yoga instructor being like, “Sorry, does this mean the thing is over? Or, like–”

Um, OK—so Michel also pulled out a fishing rod and two meters of rope.

OK, so Jay—you’re in a prison yard with a pistol, a fishing pole, and some rope. What are you—how are you gonna escape, Jay?

Jay: I’ll start fishing in the moat. Uh, I’ll catch a fish, I’ll—I’ll tie a, a rope around the fish’s neck and use it to like, water ski across the moat, right?

Arturo: Beautiful. Yes. Jumping–

Jay: Is that what he did?

Arturo: Jumping the shark. He jumped the shark.

Now Michel ran to the side of the prison building forcing everybody to clear a path. He used a fishing rod to loop the rope through the window bars two meters up. Then he used a rope to climb up. He scrambled from window ledge to window ledge using the fishing pole to lift the rope and loop it through the next set of iron bars.

Can you f***ing believe?

Jay: Oh my god.

Arturo: Now a prison guard was stationed on the roof, but Michel knew that the man in the helicopter was holding him at gunpoint. It was when he reached the roof that Michel says that all the noise caught up with him. He heard the alarms blaring, the helicopter roaring and the prisoners below cheering him on.

Like, obviously it must be such an emotive moment, huh? So he—he jumped onto the landing skids of the helicopter and flew away while the prisoners clapped and celebrated his escape.

Jay: Oh my God. He jump—he just jump—he just grabbed onto the skids?

Arturo: The skids. Yeah.

Jay: Oh my—well, that’s where all the yoga came in. I mean, he had like, muscle tone, obviously.

Arturo: Yeah, he was also—and people say that his chi was really connected as well.

Jay: “You know, like, he could just merge completely with the helicopter—the energy of the helicopter.”

Arturo: There—there was a sense of oneness, uh, repeated by the prison guards. Well, at least that’s—that’s Michel’s version of the story. You know, he published that in a book in 2018, laying it all out. But Michel leaves out some key details that were reported in the news at the time.

Now, first of all, Michel didn’t make the climb alone, OK? He had an accomplice, another prisoner named Pierre, who followed him up to the roof and held off the prison guards with a bundle of grenades. Now–

Jay: What?

Arturo: Yeah. Hear—hear this out?

Jay: Where’d he get a bundle of grenades?

Arturo: Well, I’m—I’m about to tell you. I’m about to tell you. So as the news report tells it, a man with a machine gun jumped out of the helicopter and slid down a cable to the building’s roof.

He tied the cord around Michel, who was lifted into the helicopter. Now the cord–

Jay: Ohh.

Arturo: Yeah, the cord was dropped again to the gunman who grabbed it and he was also raised into the air. Then the helicopter turned and flew off leaving Pierre behind. So yeah—that’s why he didn’t put it in his book.

Jay: Oh, not lucky, Pierre. Unlucky Pierre.

Arturo: No good for Pierre. What a dick move. Can you imagine? You did all this? You’re like, “Yes, we have it. We are free.” And they’re like, “Wait, wait, wait. Where are you? We did yoga together, you bastard!”

Um, so—Pierre was awaiting trial for armed robbery, and he told the police that he decided not to join the escape at the last minute.

Shut the f*** up, Pierre. You got left. OK. You got—it’s one of these, “I didn’t—he didn’t dump me. I dumped him” sort of vibe.

Jay: Poor Pierre.

Arturo: Poor Pierre. But the thing that Pierre could reveal to the prison guards was that the grenades he was using were not real.

Jay: Shocked.

Arturo: They were nectarines. Yeah.

Jay: Shocked. I’m shocked.

Arturo: So they were nectarines, bro. Pierre had hidden them and covered them in paint to look like explosives.

I—I love to think that one of the guards knew they were in grenades, but is absolutely grossed out by fruit. Like, you know, the dude took one look and he’s like, “Absolutely f***ing not, OK?”

Jay: Hey, those are green nectarines, man, we could get explosive diarrhea!

Arturo: “F*** that, man.” I—that’s right. Like, “I don’t—my mouth is just salivating thinking about the sourness.”

And now—as for the rest of the guards, I can’t blame ’em not wanting to get up close and personal with some f***ing grenades to see if they were gonna explode. You know? Prisoner yells “grenade” at me where there’s a helicopter in the sky, I’m gonna believe him!

Jay: I’m surprised they didn’t use cheese because I—I think, like, those round cheeses would look a little more grenade-like.

Arturo: Because no prison guard will ever mistake cheese for grenades, bro. OK, that’s a—that’s right.

Jay: Nectarines is—yeah, you’re right.

Arturo: It’s easier to confuse.

So Nadine flew Michel to a soccer field at a nearby university. When they landed, there was a car waiting to whisk them away. No names of their accomplices in the helicopter or getaway car ever came to light. So at least they were, uh, you know, honor among thieves in there.

Jay: Well, yeah. I mean—I’m still thinking about poor Pierre like standing on that rooftop going like, “Eh, one more. One more?”

Arturo: “Hello, anybody?”

Jay: “Uh, hello? Hello?”

Arturo: “Anybody? You guys are coming back. You guys are coming back though, right?”

Jay: “Yeah. You’re just going to get more fuel, right? You’re coming–”

Arturo: “You guys are coming back though. Like, should I just—should I just wait—wait here? OK. I’ll wait here. I’ll–”

Jay: “I got the nectarines. I–”

Arturo: “Anybody hungry in the meantime?”

Jay: [Laughs]

Arturo: So Michel was a contract burglar, and the escape was arranged by his friends in organized crime. He’d never admitted who helped them, but it was obviously a network with accomplices both inside and outside the prison.

When the police chased down the helicopter at the soccer field, they surrounded it for more than an hour before moving in to check it out. I mean, they were terrified that it was booby trapped and waited to see if it would explode. Like, holy sh*t—no wonder the nectarine plan worked.

Jay: Yeah, I mean … these French police are pretty cautious. I’ll—I’ll, give that to them.

Arturo: Uh, yeah—I’ll … I’ll give them that. Yeah.

So eventually they sent bomb-sniffing dogs in to inspect it before they searched it, but found nothing. Now, some accounts say that Michel and Nadine escaped to South America for a few months, but eventually returned after running outta money.

Jay: I—I love that they staged this incredibly elaborate and expensive escape with all the details in place. And then all the—you know, like, wires dangling from helicopters, but they—they go to South America and run outta money. I mean come on.

Arturo: They’re like, “I don’t know how to spend–” Yeah. Nobody taught them economics.

Jay: Like, “Oh yeah, we can escape, but we cannot budget a trip to South America.” It’s like, come on dudes.

Arturo: They didn’t think in those 17 months of like—or whatever it was—[of] like f***ing helicopter lessons, you didn’t—you didn’t do one, like, accounting lesson.

Jay: Yeah.

Arturo: So if it’s true that they left, they were also able to slip back across the border into France and hide out in a small French town. By that same fall in 1986, their two daughters were 12 and 5. They tried to set up a life as a family in this little small town. French newspapers say that they were really happy together. Michel says that he was mad at Nadine. She wanted to give up a life of crime and live a peaceful situation as a family.

Jay: Ugh. Nadine, come on.

Arturo: Nadine, who do you think you are, with your sportsman-womanlike figure?

Jay: It’s all about rebellion, man.

Arturo: Come on, man. The war against society.

She even considered turning herself in and she told him so. Now what everyone agrees on is that Michel and Nadine were outta money.

So just a few months after the jailbreak, Michel decided to try another robbery. Like … f***in’ idiot. But he was pretty desperate and didn’t exactly … like, have a plan…or anything.

So on the day, he got to the bank and saw that there were three armed guards stationed at the front door. But instead of backing out, Michel tried to jump them and win a fight three to one.

Jay: Oh no.

Arturo: Michel, man. All this yoga’s getting to your brain, dude. You can’t just flow it in there. He says he was able to disarm two of them before the third one started shooting and the other cops arrived. In the firefight, one newspaper says that Michel shot three officers—before they shot Michel in the head with a magnum.

Check this out. The bullet lodged in Michel’s brain. Somehow it didn’t kill him, OK?

One of the most extremely gross parts here, right—Michel says that before he blacked out, he saw bits of his brain floating away from his head in a stream of his own blood. Uh, pretty intense. Why are you charging at arm guards, Michel? F***ing hell.

Jay: Oh man. The guy has a death wish. I mean–

Arturo: Yeah it’s—I want to think it’s karma for Pierre. Justice for Pierre.

Jay: Justice. This is what it’s all about, man.

Arturo: That’s right. Um, so—poor Pierre.

Jay: Pierre, meanwhile is still standing on that rooftop.

Arturo: He’s like, “guys, anytime, Any—anybody got–”

Jay: “They’re coming back, they’re coming back, Don’t you worry.”

Arturo: So Michel fell into a coma.

The police grabbed him, and took him to the hospital. Now, they were able to identify him as the helicopter prison escapee just by his tattoos.

It didn’t help that one of his tattoos said, “F*** the police, I escaped in a helicopter. Come get me!”

Um, eventually—eventually Michel came back to consciousness, but his left side was paralyzed. He was charged with numerous crimes, and this time when he was moved to prison, he was locked in solitary confinement.

Jay: You can’t blame them, can you?

Arturo: Yeah. They’re like, “f***ing, guy. Put him where we can see him.”

Jay: “We’re done. We’re done.” He gets—OK, he gets one round cheese every now and then, but that’s it.

Arturo: “One round cheese. Give him—OK, give him the Camembert. Let him stew in there with it.”

Um, the day after Michel was arrested, the police swept in and arrested Nadine too. They had been conspirators before—so naturally she was suspected as part of the plan for their most recent robbery.

Apparently Michel tried to escape again by helicopter in 1993. But the prison–

Jay: No.

Arturo: Yes, but the prison had been alerted and his plan was thwarted. People need to stop renting his friends some helicopters, man. Like, they’re like—they’re like–

Jay: If there’s one thing I hate, it’s repeat helicopter escapes. I mean, come on. There’s a lot of other motorized vehicles that–

Arturo: Yeah. Just make it cooler, right? Like, yeah. Try harder, Michel.

Jay: Something. something. How about a team of pole vaulters to, you know, get over the fence.

Arturo: Yeah. Or, or those—or those Alaskan pulling dogs, what do they call them?

Jay: Yeah. You mean like in the Iditarod? Is that what you’re referring to?

Arturo: The—the hu-ahh, like–

Jay: Yeah, yeah. huskies. Yeah, yeah.

Arturo: Huskies. Just a bunch of huskies.

Jay: Well, you’d have to get some snow-making equipment in the prison somehow for the huskies to have something to go on.

Arturo: Well, that’s—that’s Pierre’s job. This time you convince him, that “this time, for sure. After you build this–”

Jay: Oh my God. He would make all the snow and dig a tunnel for the huskies to get out, and then they would leave him.

Arturo: They would leave his ass again.

Chapter 4: The Aftermath

Arturo: Here’s the aftermath. OK?

Michel was finally released from prison in September, 2003. He still had 16 years left on his sentence but changes in French law allowed a judge to overrule the earlier decision.

This does surprise me about a lot of European law, bro, that they were like, “this man murders 17 people. We gave him 10 years. Ten years to think about it.” You know what I mean? Like, it just feels like—like, sentences in Europe sometimes are so commuted.

Jay: Yeah, I just get the feeling they’re a lot more lenient about a lot of things, you know? Like–

Arturo: They’re like, “I dunno, they probably had it coming. I don’t know his life, uh, you know–”

Jay: No, you know—“Pierre deserved it. Nobody liked Pierre.”

Arturo: Yeah. Nobody—that f***ing Pierre is still working at the f***ing prison now. He’s like, “F*** you guys.”

Now, when he was free, Michel had spent 27 years total in jail. Seventeen of those years in solitary confinement.

Jay: Whoa.

Arturo: Yeah.

Jay: That—that’ll do some damage on the old noggin my friend.

Arturo: F***ing damage you. Maybe—maybe that’s where all this, uh, yoga and zen stuff, uh, came in handy.

He had lived only 40 months of his adult life as a free man.

Jay: Oh my God.

Arturo: Now on the French legal system, Michel said, “justice and all that stuff didn’t exist for me. That justice business was a complete con. Some people command the poor folks below them, and I was one of the poor folks. Those who had no power, nothing. I was the son of nothing.”

What an impassioned speech.

Jay: Oh.

Arturo: Uh, he strikes on some interesting points, but like, you know—I love the idea of Michel hair billowing in the wind coming out of solitary confinement and being like, “I have a declaration to make.” You know?

Jay: Oh, I mean, he sounds very philosophical about it. You know, like for a guy who would just bum rush armed guards and–

Arturo: Yeah, you really.

Jay: –and just like rob mercilessly and plan these elaborate escapes.

Arturo: So Michel’s escape inspired many copycats. Between 1986 and 2015, eight additional helicopter escapes occurred in French prisons.

Jay: OK. You know what? They should just outlaw helicopters.

Arturo: At some point, it’s a French prison’s fault. To discourage helicopter escapes, French prisons have started to put mesh nets and closely-spaced cables over outdoor spaces.

Jay: What about large glass terrines or domes, you know?

Arturo: What about the Catholic priests shaming you as you’re flying in?

Jay: Just post Catholic priests on the roofs of all prisons.

Arturo: And be like–

Jay: –shaming people.

Arturo: “Nope. Stop this. Nope.” Uh, that would f***ing—you know, that would stop me. I’d be like nope, “I’m out. I’m out.”

Jay: Oh my God. That would stop you in a second.

Arturo: Yeah. I mean, I’m out. I’m out.

Jay: Catholic Priests are your kryptonite.

Arturo: They really are. Now, on the Nadine side, she published a book about her life and especially about the prison escape.

In fact, she beat Michel by a few decades. Her memoir, called Air Girl, was published in 1989. She actually got a film deal out of it, a movie of the same title. In French, it’s La Fille de l’air.

Jay: Mm.

Arturo: And—so much nicer in French. And it was released in 1992.

Now, Michel Vaujour’s biography was published in 2018 with a title, Love Saved me from Sinking.

He claims that today he is a changed man. He’s still alive, and his war against society is over. He even says—here we go—that his yoga technique restored his brain function and healed his left hand, his arm, and leg with a reversal of consciousness. I believe it. I mean, listen man—OK, I subscribe to Goop, you know, I’m with it. I live in LA. I believe in these things happening.

Now the—actually, the love that saved Michel was apparently not Nadine’s. Ooh, you son of a gun.

Jay: Ooh, harsh.

Arturo: Yep. A law student named Jamila started visiting him in prison, and one French newspaper says that they held a secret wedding in 1999. He even tried to have her—he tried to have her repeat the helicopter escape, but Jamila was arrested.

Hear me out. She f***ing said yes, but she was arrested before they could pull it off.

Jay: You know–

Arturo: And was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Jay: Talk about repeating the same mistakes with every relationship.

Arturo: That’s right. Also, like how good is this man in bed?

Jay: Uh, I mean he’s obviously got a sort of an animal magnetism going.

Arturo: He—yeah.

Jay: I mean, cause like now Nadine’s on the rooftop with Pierre, right?

Arturo: Yeah, he just leaves.

Jay: He just left them both.

Arturo: And now Nadine and Pierre actually, yeah. Have a fair trade cheese company. They lived happily ever.

Jay: In our Hollywood version of this Arturo, like, you know—yeah. Pierre and Nadine definitely end up together.

Arturo: They end up together. They have an Etsy shop, happily ever after.

Jay: Making—making keys out of wax.

Arturo: That’s right.

So when Michel and Jamila were finally released, Michel went to live with his new wife Jamila. Now imagine Nadine, bro. Like what else do you have to do for this motherf***er? And then he publishes a book named like, Love Saved Me, but it wasn’t yours?

Jay: I know! That’s so wrong. I mean, she took helicopter lessons.

Arturo: She took helicopter lessons.

Jay: I mean, a lot of helicopter lessons. She learned how to hover like 4 feet off the ground.

Arturo: That’s f***ing really hard. I don’t know personally, but it sounds–

Jay: She loved him.

Arturo: Yeah that’s right. Somebody throw a tangerine at this f***ing guy.

Jay: I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m—I’m kind of angry at this dude. I mean, war on society, OK. But to dump Pierre and Nadine?

Arturo: And to brag about it?

Jay: Oh, I know, I know.

Arturo: That, listen, that’s our story. But to recap—uh, we learned that Michel was excellent at escaping, but really bad at keeping personal relationships, which he should work on.

Jay: Definitely, definitely. But it’s very French too.

Arturo: Hey, hey. I cannot speak to that. Jay, can you stop f***ing with our French audience?

Jay: No, I—I love our French audience!

Outro

Arturo: My friend, what a f***ing pleasure to talk to you, as always.

Jay: Oh my God, I love these escapes.

Arturo: Oh, thanks man.

Jay: I would talk to you about anything in a heartbeat. Are you kidding?

Arturo: Yeah, brother. Um, we recently worked on a film together called The Gift, right? The Gift. Right?

Jay: The Present, but—but close enough.

Arturo: Ok well, f*** it. The Gift is a better, The Gift is a better—this is also a pitch session for titles, for your movies, Jay. And–

Jay: No. You see, The Gift only works one way. The Present is also the present.

Arturo: I see, yeah.

Jay: It’s like a gift as well as the present moment.

Arturo: Ooh, a little play on words there. Do you have anything else you’d like to plug, brother? Anything I might’ve missed?

Jay: Well, my new line of pants that have like the little zippered flaps on the bottom. So–

Arturo: Perfect for hiding fake guns.

Jay: When you’re in shorts. Yes. And hiding for fake guns and cheese, and um–

Arturo: “You ever—are you ever in shorts? But feel you have to run to a meeting trying Jay’s new catfish pants. Yeah. They’ll get you hired and then you never have to wear pants ever again.”

Jay: Um, I have like a—a novel out on Audible now called The Present as well. It’s—it’s not a coincidence. It’s the same.

Arturo: Right.

Jay: It’s a—it’s basically the same story.

Arturo: It’s actually a different story, but you used—you wanna get a thematic title.

Jay: It actually—it should be called The Gift. And then I have another novel coming out on Audible called May Fly Man.

Arturo: Oh, wonderful. Brother, much love to you. Thank you so much.

Jay: Oh, my pleasure, Arturo.

Arturo: We’ll see you next time.

Credits

Arturo: Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and FilmNation Entertainment, in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Arturo, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from FilmNation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Whitney Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio.

The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chugg, who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who is our other overlord.

Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Ryzack, Sara Joyner, Nicki Stein, Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright.

Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you’re enjoying the show, please leave a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we’ll see you all next week.