L'Attentat (aka The French Conspiracy) (1972)

Because of the current right wing government in his country, a North African politician (Gian Maria Volonte) lives in exile in Switzerland. As he plots his return to his homeland, the forces in his country form a pact with the French secret service and the CIA to assassinate him. A former leftist radical (Jean Louis Trintignant) now working as a journalist becomes an unwitting participant in the assassination plot. Directed by Yves Boisset, this is a fictionalized film inspired by the assassination of Mehdi Ben Barka, a Moroccan politician who "disappeared" on French soil and was later revealed to have been murdered with the cooperation of the French government and the CIA. While it was often difficult to follow the political dynamics of the narrative, this was an absorbing political thriller in the manner of Costa-Gavras' whose Z remains the benchmark of European political thrillers. Its downbeat ending reiterates that fascist governments are corrupt as if we didn't already know but a "happy" ending would have come off as pandering to the audience. The acting is quite good and features Jean Seberg, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Francois Perier, Michel Bouquet and Roy Scheider.