Colonel Thierry Jouan, at present in charge of the mission of the President of the Association of Honorary Consuls of Monaco, was at FNAC for the book signing of his recently published book "Une vie dans l’ombre" « A life in the shadows », Editions du Rocher.

Jouan was an officer in the DGSE (The General Directorate for External Security in the French Defense Ministry - what we call the MI6, in the UK) for over a decade, followed by six years as a field assistant in the Prince’s Palace in Monaco, spending most of his professional life, as he says, in the shadows and to the service of others.

He said he hesitated for a long time to write about that period of his life, because of the obvious difficulty to write about the « Secret Services » when by definition it is secret, and what would he be allowed to made public after he swore to discretion upon leaving in 1999 to join the Palace in Monaco. But he finally decided to write about the human aspect of his experience, of a life made between lights and shadows. In his own words "I would like my children to know the reasons of all those years of absence, inexistance, lies, and somehow share the beginning of my escape". It is the story of a man who tries to flee from the nightmares that haunt him, and seal the open wounds forever.

Photo by Celina Lafuente de Lavotha: Book signing with Thierry Jouan at FNAC accompanied by his son Arnaud.