Published9. February 2024, 11:50
France: Robert Badinter died at 95
The former Minister of Justice of François Mitterrand had supported the abolition of the death penalty in France.
Robert Badinter died at 95.
AFP
Father of the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981, the former Minister of Justice and lawyer Robert Badinter died on the night of Thursday to Friday, at the age of 95.
The disappearance of the man who also chaired the Constitutional Council, announced to AFP by his colleague Aude Napoli, sparked an avalanche of tributes.
“A figure of the century”
President Emmanuel Macron praised X as “a figure of the century, a republican conscience, the French spirit”. “It is a landmark for many generations”, “a conscience”. “The nation has certainly lost a great man, a very great lawyer”, “a wise man”, “a national tribute will be paid to him”, declared the Head of State on the sidelines of a trip to Bordeaux dedicated to justice and the police.
“He will have devoted every second of his life to fighting for what was right, to fighting for fundamental freedoms. The abolition of the death penalty will forever be its legacy for France,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on X, while the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, a former lawyer, spoke of a “ visionary Keeper of the Seals” who “leaves a void worthy of his legacy: immeasurable”.
The leader of La France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part, praised his “unparalleled strength of conviction”, remembering a being “simply luminous”.
Abolition of the death penalty
Minister of Justice under socialist president François Mitterrand (1981-1986), Robert Badinter introduced the law of October 9, 1981 which abolished the death penalty, in a France then majority in favor of this supreme punishment.
He subsequently invested, until his “last breath of life”, for the universal abolition of capital punishment.
Her father arrested before her eyes
He was born in Paris on March 30, 1928 into a Jewish family who emigrated from Bessarabia (now Moldova). His father, arrested before his eyes during the Second World War in Lyon, died during deportation in the Sobibor concentration camp, in Poland.
After studying literature and law and a diploma from Columbia University, he became a lawyer at the Paris bar and at the same time pursued a career as a university teacher.
Co-founder with Jean-Denis Bredin of a prestigious law firm, he defends personalities, big names in the press or business and occasionally pleads at court.
The origin of his fight
His fight against the death penalty finds its origins in this morning of November 28, 1972: one of his clients, Roger Bontemps, accomplice in a deadly hostage-taking, has just been executed.
This “calls into question your view of justice. I swore to myself, when leaving the Health Court that morning at dawn, that all my life I would fight the death penalty,” he told AFP in 2021.
Survivors including Patrick Henry
In 1977, he spared the death penalty for child murderer Patrick Henry, who was sentenced to life imprisonment. After that, five other men escaped the scaffold thanks to him.
This led to him being hated for a long time, for his supposed laxity towards criminals.
Three children with Elisabeth
This man with a slim figure and thick black eyebrows was married since 1966 to the philosopher Elisabeth Badinter, née Bleustein-Blanchet, with whom he had three children.
In August 1982, he voted for the decriminalization of homosexuality. To his credit also, the abolition of high security districts, access for French litigants to the European Court of Human Rights and a law on compensation for accident victims.
After his departure from the government, he chaired the Constitutional Council for nine years (1986-1995).
Socialist senator from 1995 to 2011, he had the satisfaction of seeing the abolition of the death penalty included in the Constitution in 2007.
Still very active, he is working on a reform of the UN in the 2000s and on the reform of the Labor Code during the five-year term of François Hollande.
Rain of tributes
The President of the Constitutional Council, Laurent Fabius, paid tribute to him by speaking to AFP of “a righteous man among the righteous”, who “made progress in law and humanism”.
For the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, the former Minister of Justice was “more than the abolitionist who put an end to the death penalty” because “he embodied the very idea of justice”.
“He will remain an example of righteousness and fairness for lawyers and our country,” Paris President Pierre Hoffmann said on X.
Marine Le Pen spoke of “a notable figure in the intellectual and legal landscape”. “We could not share all of Robert Badinter’s struggles, but (he was a) man of convictions,” added the far-right leader on Friday in a message published on X.
Robert Badinter died on the anniversary of the raid on Rue Sainte-Catherine in Lyon, February 9, 1943, during which his father was arrested.
“This singular story made him a great man, a mensch (a good man, Editor’s note), he who dedicated his life for that of all others, for human rights and freedoms,” said the Chief Rabbi of France Haïm Korsia.
(afp)