Robert Badinter (March 30, 1928 – February 9, 2024)
On September 17, 1981, when he took to the podium of the Assembly to defend the abolition of the death penalty, this man, he knew, was preparing to write a page of History.
In a long speech, the new Minister of Justice delivers a passionate, vibrant plea.
France is then the last country in the European Community where the death penalty still serves as “justice” for the most serious crimes. The voice, assured, comes from the depths, and the vibrato signs the sensitivity and emotionality of the one who becomes, in this moment, a conscience of French political life of the 20th century.
Robert Badinter concludes: “Tomorrow, thanks to you, justice will no longer be a justice that kills. » The bill was adopted on September 18 by 363 votes to 117 before being definitively voted on in the Senate on September 30. Worn by anxiety, Robert Badinter, who died on February 9, had confided to Pilgrim , in 2021, its unalterable faith in the universal abolition of the death penalty. Son of a Jewish deportee, he also recalled memories with his friend, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger. Courageous, honest, ardent, he was a fierce human rights activist to the end.
