French President Macron Proposes Abolishing Death Penalty Worldwide

French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday he will lead a global campaign to end state-sponsored executions.

PARIS (Reuters) - France will launch a campaign for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty as part of its upcoming presidency of the European Union, President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.

A conference will be held in Paris gathering civil society groups from countries where the death penalty is in use or suspended, Macron said in a speech to mark the 40th anniversary of France’s abolition of the punishment.

France, which will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2022, will also work with other member states towards a United Nations resolution requiring countries to report each year the number of death penalty sentences given and executions carried out, he said.

Macron was speaking alongside Robert Badinter, the justice minister of late President Francois Mitterrand who steered the abolition of the death penalty through the French parliament in 1981.

France was the 35th country in the world to outlaw the death sentence.

Further abolitions and moratoriums since then mean that most countries no longer use the punishment, although several large nations including China, Iran and the United States maintain it.

In France, the public remains sharply divided on the issue, according to opinion polls.

Source: Reuters, Staff, October 9, 2021

Robert Badinter, the lawyer who fought to end the death penalty in France

After many decades of legal wrangling, France finally abolished the death penalty in 1981.

The legislation was passed under socialist president François Mitterrand, but the flagbearer for the move was an indefatigable lawyer who was to become minister for justice, Robert Badinter.

"I have the honour, on behalf of the Government of the French Republic, to submit to the National Assembly the abolition of capital punishment in France." This statement by France's then justice minister, Robert Badinter, marked the official end of the death penalty in France.

When François Mitterrand became president in May 1981, he appointed lawyer and activist Badinter as his justice minister.

Abolition of the death penalty became a priority for the new socialist government, but it was met with strong resistance in some quarters.

Badinter had witnessed firsthand the gruesome finality of the guillotine and was determined to push the law through.

He said he who could no longer bear decapitations, including that of his own client, Roger Bontems, who was executed for complicity in a lethal armed robbery.

"When I saw Bontems being executed – executing is cutting a living man in two! – I swore I wouldn't just be opposed to the death penalty, I would become an activist," he later said.

France's National Assembly eventually passed the legislation on September 18, 1981, with 363 votes in favour and 117 against.

Weeks later, capital punishment was formally abolished by the Act of October 9, 1981.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, October 9, 2021

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