To further Gaullist ambitions, he built a network of contacts, spies, informers and friends through which he ran African policy, by-passing the Quai d'Orsay, the foreign ministry.
The last town before the Spanish border, Cerbere, feels more Catalonian and less French, with a smaller quai-side than Banyuls and a boat-clogged harbour framed by the Pyrenees.