VIDEO – Robert Badinter’s powerful speech, 40 years after the abolition of the death penalty – LCI

The former Minister of Justice held a powerful speech on Saturday at the Pantheon where, with Emmanuel Macron, he would commemorate on October 9, 2021 the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty which had made him vote in 1981. “Forty years have passed since the vote to abolish the death penalty in France, the march towards universal abolition has continued to progress since then”, began the former Minister of Justice, recalling that in Europe, “the death penalty has completely disappeared, except in Belarus, the last Stalinist state”.

After blacklisting China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, but also the United States, which still condemn and execute, called for “France must be present everywhere in the forefront when it comes to combating the death penalty “. “We refuse to increase the mass of thousands of people condemned to death in the world, among which there are innocent people who inhabit the death quarters for years, even decades. As long as in the world, we will hang, we will gass , we will behead, we will stone, we will shoot, all those who consider the right to life as a moral absolute must continue their fight “, thundered the former Minister of Justice. “The death penalty is doomed to disappear from this world because it is a shame for humanity“, launched Robert Badinter.

“In truth, the death penalty does not defend the society of free women and men, it dishonours it. Thus, we must always and everywhere refuse, under the guise of justice, that death be the law”.

A powerful speech at the end of which the former minister was applauded for a long time. Emmanuel Macron then announced that France would “relaunch the fight for universal abolition” of the death penalty by organizing a “meeting at the highest level“to” convince “the leaders of countries still applying it to “the urgency to abolish it”.