Guy Gilbert

Who is Guy Gilbert?

Father Guy Gilbert is a French Roman Catholic priest and educator.

Born in Rochefort, Gilbert was educated at a seminary in Algeria and ministered in Algiers until 1970. He returned to France, to Paris, where he specialised in working with juvenile delinquents in the working-class 19th arrondissement where there was a sizable pied noir community. He purchased a farm in southern France, in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, and established the Bergerie du Faucon centre where troubled youngsters might be reeducated and reintegrated into society through work, contact with animals and nature, and self-respect.

Guy Gilbert is thought to be a mentor of and a father figure for Prince Laurent of Belgium. In 2003, he married Laurent and Claire Coombs at the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels. In 2011, he took part in the First Communion of their daughter Princess Louise.

A regular radio correspondent with Radio Notre-Dame, a frequent interviewee on television, a journalist with La Croix, and a prolific author, Guy Gilbert's appearance—his greying hair is long and flowing and he is usually seen in a battered leather jacket— and language are unorthodox. Former President Jacques Chirac made him a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He received the award from Abbé Pierre.