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Henri Paul (July 3, 1956 - August 31, 1997) was an employee of the Hôtel Ritz Paris and the chauffeur driving at the time of the automobile accident that killed him along with Diana, Princess of Wales, and her romantic interest Dodi Al-Fayed. Trevor Rees-Jones, Al-Fayed's bodyguard, survived (see details of the crash).

French police report that Paul was under the influence of alcohol and trying to elude paparazzi journalists at a high speed when the automobile he was driving crashed into a column supporting the Alma Tunnel in Paris, France. Some controversy surrounds when, how, and even whether Paul might have consumed as much alcohol as the police suggest he did.^{[citation needed]} His blood alcohol content level was between 1.73 grams per litre to 1.75 grams per litre.

The inquiry by Lord Stevens, former head of the Metropolitan Police Service, into the events of August 31 noted that Paul had been off duty on the night in question, when he was summoned suddenly back by Dodi Al-Fayed who demanded that he drive. He would not, the inquiry concluded, have been expecting to be required to drive when he began to drink that evening. A search of his flat revealed no evidence of a heavy drinking habit.

Paul received a pilot's license in 1974. His annual pilot's physical examination three days before the accident did not reveal alcoholism. The original document Certificat D'Aptitude Physique et Mentale was shown in German-Television "ZDF" in 1998 (Diana - Geheimnisse der Todesnacht, ZDF 1998).

His employer, the Ritz Hotel, had him trained as a driver by Mercedes-Benz.

New DNA evidence proving the blood sample taken from the crime scene was indeed Henri Paul's, shows the driver of Princess Diana's car was drunk on the night of her fatal crash in a Paris underpass in 1997, the BBC reported on 9 December 2006. However, there have been no reports of a protocol known as split sampling having been used - when in sensitive or contentious situations, a sample is divided and sent to two laboratories, each working independently of the other; this procedure is used to reduce the possibility of scientific fraud.

The DNA test confirms his blood matched that of the original sample, purportedly taken at the crime scene, which had three times the French legal limit of alcohol in the blood, according to a BBC documentary screened in December 2006.^{[citation needed]}

• Download: Lord Stevens' 832-page Operation Paget Report Into The Deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, Dodi Al Fayed & Henri Paul 14th December 2006
• Unknown secrets about Henri Paul
• Funeral for Diana's driver
• DNA Evidence confirms drivers intoxication in fatal crash
• Synopsis of Autopsy Findings. public-interest.co.uk.
• The life and poignant death of Diana's driver