Dakar Rally navigator and adventurer Jean-Luc Leran dies at 75

Jean-Luc Léran, who dedicated his life to the great outdoors to the point where he took on the Dakar Rally in the 1980s and 1990s, died 11 May at the age of 75.

Although an electrician by trade, the Frenchman spent nearly five decades exploring the Sahara Desert, studying and collecting artifacts like fossils and prehistoric objects; one of his proudest discoveries was the centuries-old complete skeleton of a pilot whale, which he and his wife had to bury in the sand to protect from the rainstorm before they could bring it back to France. As his collections are for his personal use rather than profit, authorities in Africa permitted him to bring his findings home to Agon-Coutainville, effectively turning his house into a private museum of sort.

His interest in anthropology and paleontology stemmed from his military service, being stationed in Africa and participating in tours across the Ténéré. He was also a falconer, one of just three in the Lower Normandy region by 2022, who owned birds of prey like goshawks.

In 1988, Léran’s knowledge of the African desert prompted André Dessoude to enlist him as a co-driver for the Paris–Dakar Rally, whose route that year ran through much of the northern and central parts of the continent. Racing a Nissan Terrano, the two finished seventeenth overall. They improved upon this the following year with an eleventh outright and winning the marathon category.

Léran continued to race with Nissan in 1991, albeit working with Jean Bouchet; he scored another marathon overall win with Bouchet as they placed eighth. A year later, they entered the Paris–Moscow–Beijing Rally and finished the gruelling month-long race in tenth. He eventually phased himself out of rally raids as satellite navigation increased in popularity over the decade.

“I stopped when the GPS arrived,” he remarked to Ouest-France in 2013. “It was no longer an adventure.”

His service took place in Agon-Coutainville last Friday, 17 May.