New Book Claims Macron Has Secret Escape Plan if Protesters Storm Élysée

French security officials have reportedly prepared to evacuate President Emmanuel Macron to a secret shelter outside Paris if protesters overrun the Élysée Palace, according to a new investigative book cited by The Telegraph.

A Reported Fallback Outside Paris

The account appears in La Nouvelle Armée des Ombres, by journalists Pierre Gastineau, Antoine Izambard and Franck Renaud. Albin Michel published the book on October 28; L’Express carried extracts on November 2, followed by The Telegraph’s report on November 6.

According to the authors, the contingency involves a bunker in the Paris suburbs rather than a refuge beneath the presidential palace. No official Élysée confirmation of the reported shelter or evacuation plan was found in the reporting reviewed.

The claimed fallback is separate from PC Jupiter, the known underground command post beneath the Élysée used for defense councils and nuclear command.

Yellow Vest Unrest Shapes Preparations

The reporting traces part of the planning to the 2018 Yellow Vest uprising, during which Macron came under attack on a visit to Le Puy-en-Velay.

Officials subsequently considered arrangements for evacuating the president, according to the account. Their deliberations also drew on the violent February 1934 riots, which brought down a French government.

The disclosures come against renewed unrest in France. Macron has appealed for calm, while authorities have announced troop deployments alongside police.

He has also acknowledged security failures during nationwide unrest.

Wider Contingency Planning

The book places the presidential evacuation claim within broader preparations for insurrection, cyberattacks and political disruption ahead of the 2027 election.

According to the authors, officials fear that a victory by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally could provoke a “third round” of confrontation in the streets among radical-left activists, suburban youths and rural militants who refuse to accept the outcome. They also say a victory by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed, which current polling has suggested could reach a presidential runoff, could trigger “passive resistance” within the police.

The authors report repeated meetings by Paris police chief Patrice Faure to prepare for an insurrection. They write that France’s foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, has simulated electoral interference, and that Paris police rehearsed operating for a full day without encrypted smartphones in case of a crippling cyberattack. The Telegraph reported that intelligence officers badly underestimated the Oct. 17 demonstrations, predicting between 60,000 and 150,000 protesters when more than 500,000 turned out.

One of the authors told France Inter that “the government trembled” amid the 2018 unrest. Such scenarios describe the contingencies examined in the book, not evidence that an assault on the Élysée is imminent.