Abolition of the death penalty in France: forty years later, Robert Badinter’s fight

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France commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty on Saturday in a ceremony in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron, as well as former Minister of Justice Robert Badinter, whose fight resulted in this major reform .

“Do not despair of man, forever …” These words, pronounced by the former Minister of Justice Robert Badinter, in September 1981 during his speech on the abolition of the death penalty before parliament, still reason , forty years later.

The Keeper of the Seals, in office from 1981 to 1986, then evokes a human justice and therefore necessarily fallible from which the consequences must be drawn.

“I have the honor, in the name of the government of the Republic, to ask the National Assembly for the abolition of the death penalty in France,” he declared on September 17, which will be a milestone.

Media lawyer and activist

When François Mitterrand came to power, the condemned were still killed in France. And not in just any way: the guillotine, inherited from the Revolution, still rages in the middle of Paris. On November 28, 1972, Claude Buffet and Roger Bontems, condemned after a bloody hostage-taking, were beheaded in the early morning, one after the other.

One of the two, however, had only been recognized as an accomplice in the murder. His lawyer was then called Robert Badinter. “I swore to myself, having seen Bontems executed, that I would go from abolitionist conviction to activism”, he recalls, interviewed by France 24.

In 1977, he saved the head of the murderer Patrick Henry, while a majority of French people claimed it. France is the last country in Europe, with the exception of Belarus, not to have put an end to the death penalty. The abolition is then very unpopular. Ironically, it is even among criminals.

“In the crowd, who in Troyes, shouted as Buffet and Bontems passed around the courthouse ‘To death Buffet! To death Bontems!’, Was a young man called Patrick Henry”, underlines Robert Badinter.

The lawyer militates for “the Republic of values”, and not that “of opinion polls”. A cause shared by François Mitterrand, not yet president, who is personally committed to the subject. “I am against the death penalty, and I do not need to read the polls which say the opposite,” declared the candidate for the 1981 presidential election.

Justice Ministry

Upon coming to power, François Mitterrand appointed Robert Badinter Minister of Justice. Abolition is a priority for the new socialist government, but faces strong resistance.

Because many political figures consider it a strong dissuasive measure and fear that abolition will lead to an increase in crime.

The abolition was finally voted on September 30, 1981. Forty years later, Robert Badinter, 93, looked more to the future than to the past… Hated at the time by part of the population for having abolished the penalty of dead, he is today its herald, one of the most respected men in the country and militates for universal abolition, while 83 countries still apply it.

“Me, in my lifetime, I would have seen this cause triumph. The cause of abolition is the cause of life. And I believe in it! So I was very lucky”, welcomes the former Keeper of the Seals.