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The day Robert Badinter gave his speech for the abolition of the death penalty
The day Robert Badinter gave his speech for the abolition of the death penalty – (FRANCE 2)
40 years ago, the former Minister of Justice announced his bill concerning the abolition of the death penalty, despite the opposition of a majority of French people. A historic speech bringing to a head two centuries of French abolitionism.
This article, initially published on September 17, 2021 for the 40th anniversary of Robert Badinter’s speech on the abolition of the death penalty, was republished on Friday February 9, 2024, on the occasion of the death of the former Minister of Justice. Justice.
At the time of the vote on the law, on September 18, 1981, France was the last country in the EEC (future European Union) not to have yet abolished the death penalty, with Ireland. Six executions took place in the 1970s, including one which particularly marked Robert Badinter, a lawyer at the time. That of the Buffet-Bontems trial, which sentenced two men to death for the bloody hostage taking that they had organized a year earlier at the Clairvaux prison (Aube) where they were detained.
At the time, this affair horrified the whole of France. The two accused were executed at the La Santé prison on November 28, 1972, even though one of them, Roger Bontems, had only been found guilty of complicity. This event marked a turning point in the mind of Robert Badinter, the defendant’s lawyer at the time. “I swore to myself, having seen this man be executed, that I would move from the stage of conviction as an abolitionist to the stage of activism.”
Against all odds
In 1981, the abolition of the death penalty had a major ally. The future President of the Republic, François Mitterrand, who openly stated his position against the death penalty during his presidential election campaign. Newly elected, this bill is the first presented to Parliament. Robert Badinter therefore delivers his speech in a strikingly calm room. A moment that will remain engraved for life in French history.
“A long walk ends today”said the Minister of Justice at the time, repeating the words of the rapporteur of the law on the abolition of the death penalty, Raymond Forni.
Today, he looks back on this historic day. “I was very lucky, there are few people who were lucky enough to be called to defend a great cause in which you believe. In my lifetime, I would have seen this cause triumph. The cause of abolition is the cause of life“, confides the former Minister of Justice, not without emotion. A conviction that he will not let go, despite a public opinion in disagreement, which will make him for a very long time the most hated minister in his own words.