“Tomorrow, thanks to you, French justice will no longer be a justice that kills.” More than 40 years after the utterance of this sentence, these words resonate again today in the ranks of the National Assembly. On the night of Thursday February 8 to Friday February 9, 2024, Robert Badinter died at the age of 95. A man of conviction, son of a deportee, he notably marked the history of France by succeeding in convincing deputies to abolish the death penalty.
A youth marked by war
Robert Badinter was born on March 30, 1928 in Paris into a Jewish family. His father, arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo, died in the Sobibor concentration camp, in Poland. With his brother and his mother, they moved to Lyon. But Robert Badinter’s brother was finally also arrested on February 9, 1943, during a raid in the capital of Gaul, and was deported.
So, still with his mother, young Badinter settled in the suburbs of Annecy and lived under a false identity until the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
A fierce campaigner against the death penalty
After the war, he obtained his law degree in 1948 and flew to the United States to study at Columbia University. Returning to France a few years later, he took on various positions in higher education, in the universities of Dijon, Besançon and Amiens until the mid-1970s. At the same time, in 1965 he created the Badinter law firm, Bredin and partners.
But it was under the government of Pierre Mauroy that Robert Badinter met his destiny, becoming Minister of Justice. After several months of debate in Parliament, he obtained the abolition of the death penalty on October 9, 1981. A few years later he became president of the Constitutional Council in March 1986. More discreet in recent years in the political and media world, Robert Badinter today marks the end of a strong moment in the history of France, marked by humanism and hope.