Jean-Michel Nicolier

Jean-Michel Nicolier (1 July 1966 – 20 November 1991) was a French military volunteer, who fought for Croatia in the Croatian War of Independence. He participated in the Battle of Vukovar and other battlefields throughout Croatia. He was killed in the Vukovar massacre.

Early years Nicollier was born on 1 July 1966 in Vesoul, France to his mother Lyliane Fournier. In July 1991, he boarded the train and arrived in Zagreb completely alone. The same day, he was taken from the hospital by Yugoslav People's Army and paramilitary Serb forces and transported to the Ovčara farm. Nicollier's remains were among sixty not subsequently found. It was thought that they were initially disposed of in shallow graves, which caused them to be uncovered by the following spring and then thrown elsewhere,

Legacy

In 2006 Nicollier was posthumously awarded the Memorial Plaque Vukovar 1991. In 2010, Croatian authors Višnja Starešina and Ivan Maloča released a documentary about the Vukovar massacre, telling the story of Siniša Glavašević as well as Nicollier. The programme was aired in prime-time by HRT on the 19th anniversary of the massacre.

Prompted by the publicity Nicollier's case received in 2010, a Croatian veteran Antun Ivanković from Tovarnik joined with Nevenka Nekić, a retired professor, to investigate the story, and contacted Nicollier's mother. That same day, Nicollier was awarded with the Order of Nikola Šubić Zrinski for heroism. Nicollier's mother came to Zagreb with his younger brother Paul, to receive the order from Croatia's President Ivo Josipović.

In June 2012, the NGO published Nekić's book Jean ili miris smrti (Jean or the smell of death) about Nicollier. In August 2012, again at the initiative of Ivanković's NGO, Nicollier's mother met the Croatian Minister of Veterans' Affairs Predrag Matić, who confirmed she was entitled to the veteran's pension of her late son.

In May 2013 citizens of Vukovar decided by internet voting to name the new build bridge on the river Vuka in his honour Most Jean-Michela Nicoliera.

34 years after his presumed death, Jean-Michel Nicolier's body was identified on October 29th, 2025., amongst other corpses on the Ovčara mass grave. He and 3 other corpses were found about a hundred meters from the hangar, next to the road that led to Ovčara.