Disappearance of Robert Badinter, anti-death penalty activist

When Robert Badinter, who has died aged 95, entertained guests at his home on the rue Guynemer (6th rue de Paris), in his bright study with a majestic view of the Pantheon and the foliage of the Luxembourg Gardens, he inevitably invited the visitor on a journey into terrible history death penalty.

The former Minister of Justice, the initiator of its abolition in 1981 – the most memorable event of the presidency of François Mitterrand – kept there, between antique furniture and modern paintings, a precious wealth of historical documents, some of which date back to Louis XVI and the Revolution, gleaned from the archives of past parliaments, in specialized bookstores or auction rooms. Just like this handwritten letter from Victor Hugo, the much-admired author of Les Misérables and also an ardent killer of the hated guillotine.

In this cozy museum, a wise old man, his eyes always sparkling under thick eyebrows, pulled out from a notebook bound in black leather the thing dearest to his heart: his own law on the abolition of the death penalty, promulgated on October 9, 1981. The text is a short article he wrote, about which he admitted with surprise that “only the first article, death penalty abolishedwould be enough, the rest is useless.

And a page covered with five signatures. In addition to his own, drawn in black by Bick, are those of President François Mitterrand, Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, and ministers Gaston Deffert (interior) and Charles Hernoux (defense). Everything passed long before him. It was Mitterrand, as Badinter recalled with emotion, who showed “delicacy and friendly attention” to convey to him the text (there are only a few copies) thus initialed during this historic Council of Ministers.

A humanist icon of the left, like Simone Weil of the right, Robert Badinter shared with the minister who introduced the IVG law a family history marked by the Nazi death camps. He was born into modest means in 1928 to Russian Jews who immigrated from Bessarabia (a territory now divided between Moldova and Ukraine) who took up the hide trade and vowed only to integrate into the Republic.

A family destroyed by the Holocaust

Simon, the father, was arrested by the Gestapo in Lyon (Rhône) in 1943 and deported to Sobibor (Poland). He will not return. Robert, his brother and mother then took refuge near Chambery (Savoie), which was then under Italian occupation. By registering under a false name in high school, he received a good education without worry. Surprisingly, “the Italian army protected the Jews,” he told journalist Alberto Toscano (“Ti amo Francia: From Leonardo da Vinci to Pierre Cardin, these Italians who created France,” editor Armand Colin). , 14.99 euros).

The man would remain wounded and stunned by the Shoah for the rest of his life and would make it a recurring theme in plays written after his political career. When asked recently about the return of anti-Semitism, he replied with a bitter smile: “I was 12 years old in 1940 and 16 years old at the end of the occupation. Being a Jewish teenager in occupied France does not make one feel optimistic. »

After the war, Robert Badinter began to study law, was admitted to the Paris bar at the age of 22, and began his career under the guidance of the tenor of the time Me Henry Torres, a lawyer for the anarchists and also the Middle East. inspires him that every accused is, first of all, a person who should be protected. In 1960, the young Mr. Badinter defended members of the Jeanson network, a group of French activists who supported Algerian separatists, became a famous lawyer and soon founded a successful commercial firm.

But his great cause is the fight against the death penalty. “We were the last country in Western Europe to practice this, we have a culture of violence,” he admitted to us during an interview at the height of the crisis of the Yellow Vests (some of whom carried around the head of President Macron in effigy). at the end of a pike), one who considered Gandhi, the champion of non-violence, “the greatest statesman of the twentieth century.”

A passionate speaker who seemed “in a trance” in his speeches, he often (his voice still shaking) recalled the trials of Buffay and Bontems in 1972, which ended in the guillotine, or of Patrick Henry in 1977, whose head he saved. with an atmosphere of “hate” and cries of “death!” » Crowds around jury trials in the province.

An intellectual figure more than a political one

He got into politics as an intellectual, a law professor at a university. First with Pierre Mendes France, then with François Mitterrand’s PS, for whom he wrote notes. As for the Socialist president, who kept his promise to abolish the death penalty even as polls showed a majority favoring the death penalty, Badinter’s loyalty is unwavering.

To the point that he will always refuse to publicly condemn the sphinx of Mitterrand’s dark friendship with Rene Bousquet, the former chief of police of Pétain. “It’s no one’s business,” he once replied. turned off, irritated. We explained it to ourselves (Editor’s note: with François Mitterrand)and in the course of the investigation I know that he knew Bousquet only after his acquittal. (High Court in 1948), no sooner than. In any case, they didn’t hang out in Vichy. »

The stern and somewhat cold lawyer never felt comfortable in the sometimes brutal political world. President of the Constitutional Council from 1986 to 1995, then a senator until 2011, he wrote widely – theater, historical biographies, legal works – once in tandem with his wife Elisabeth Badinter. Having become a wise man consulted by politicians, he saw his successors march through his house on the Place Vendôme, taking the oath of allegiance. Despite his increasingly frail physique, he straightened up like an “i” and put on a jacket and tie in front of the photographer: “I’m against the old gentlemen without ties! »