“He is already in the Pantheon of our hearts”, reacts his friend Laurent Fabius

Robert Badinter “would have been a president [de la République] magnificent”, pays tribute to him on France Inter, the current president of the Constitutional Council.

Robert Badinter is “already in the Pantheon of our hearts”, reacts Saturday February 10 on France Inter, Laurent Fabius, president of the Constitutional Council. He says “his infinite sadness”, the day after the death of the former Minister of Justice. The two men had been friends for almost 50 years. “The question is to transfer it to the real pantheon. If the family agrees, it’s a no-brainer,” adds Laurent Fabius, like Adline Hazan, president of Unicef ​​France on franceinfo. It recalls the motto inscribed on the pediment of the Pantheon: “Great men the grateful country”. And “that’s a great man”.

Laurent Fabius remembers his first meeting with Robert Badinter, “49 years ago because François Mitterrand had entrusted him with the task of preparing a charter of freedoms.” He “was looking, as they say, for ‘an associate who knows how to write’ and I was at the time a young associate who knew how to write at the Council of State and I was a socialist”, says Laurent Fabius. Very quickly, they became friends after discussions “on freedoms since that was the theme” Or on “rugby”. A friendship that lasted “all the life”. They had lunch together “about once a month, either at the Constitutional Council or at home.”

“He didn’t like politics very much”

Robert Badinter introduced him to former head of state François Mitterrand. “We prepared Mitterrand’s campaign together in 1980. We were specialists in what we call ‘punchlines’ today, we created sentences together. We were very proud when Mitterrand, in his meetings, repeated the short sentences “, he remembers. Both men later worked in the same government. Laurent Fabius was notably the Prime Minister of François Mitterrand. To describe Robert Badinter, the one who is today president of the Constitutional Council evokes