The Jackal is a fictional character, the villain of the novel The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. He is an assassin who is contracted by the OAS French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France. The book was published on 7 June 1971, in the year following de Gaulle's death, and became an instant bestseller. In the original 1973 film adaptation, he is portrayed by Edward Fox. A revised version of the character was portrayed by Bruce Willis in the 1997 remake, The Jackal, which had little in common with its original.