With the MPLA on the verge of defeat, dos Santos contacted Jean-Bernard Curial, the former French Socialist Party Southern Africa expert, and asked him to come to Luanda. When he came back, Curial, supportive of dos Santos, contacted members of the government, President's advisor for African Affairs, Bruno Delahe and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of then-President François Mitterrand. Jean-Christophe referred Curial to Pierre Falcone, head of , a consortium of companies, and adviser to a parastatal run by the right-wing Interior Minister Charles Pasqua. Pasqua believed that in the early 1990s the U.S. government's support for UNITA had diminished while tacit support for the MPLA increased because peace would increase oil output. He argued that if Mitterrand's position on Angola did not change in kind, French oil companies would miss out on a vital opportunity.