Excerpt taken from a French news item about The Da Vinci Code shown on TF1 on 12 December 2004.

Narration: "However, the discovery of his ‘sacred’ ancestry was to cause Pierre Plantard some inconvenience (the claim that he was descended from Jesus Christ). And so, Pierre Plantard de St. Clair retreated to his home territory of Colombes, a Parisian suburb. But in 1993 there was to be yet another dramatic turn of events. This time it was Judge Jean-Pierre who was to light the Touchpaper: Roger-Patrice Pelat, the confidential adviser to François Mitterand, was actually the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion! Plantard's Parisian home was raided and he was remanded in custody for 48 hours. Needless to say, Judge Jean-Pierre found nothing. The last laugh was on Pierre Plantard: the False Prophet had himself become a victim."

Interviewer: "So you really think that Plantard at that time believed that he was..."

Thierry Jean-Pierre: "Yes, I think so. I think that, like everyone who at a certain moment becomes a little bit detached from reality, or completely detached from it, yes he believed in it, certainly he did. It was a fraud of course because really he knew perfectly well that it wasn't true, but of course this person starts lodging forged documents with the Bibliothèque Nationale, and it was all very skilfully done and it was misinterpreted by other people. And along with these people there were some talented fantasists behind the scenes who worked hard on it, who spun things out at their leisure, until finally The Da Vinci Code came along. And yet to a certain extent he still remained on his own little Planet. And his Planet started to get bigger the more it was nourished by other talented writers."