The world of justice loses, this Tuesday, May 9, one of its great men. Georges Kiejman died at the age of 90.
By NJ with AFP
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GGeorges Kiejman, a great criminal lawyer and minister, died at the age of 90 on Tuesday, May 9, his cabinet said. A man of the left and of culture close to Pierre Mendès France and François Mitterrand, Georges Kiejman was for more than half a century a brilliant figure at the bar associated with resounding legal cases.
In addition to his main activity, he had been Minister Delegate for Justice and then for Communication in the 1990s.
Born in Paris on August 12, 1932, he is the son of a craftsman who died in deportation (he also called himself “Jew of the diaspora and Berrichon”). A poor young man, he completed his secondary studies in Saint-Amand-Montrond, in Cher. After graduating from higher education in public law, he became a lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeal in 1954 and became second secretary of the Internship Conference.
“Atypical” customers
In civilian life, where his causticity makes him formidable, he is a specialist in literary property, publishing, cinema and the press. He was notably the lawyer for Gallimard editions for many years, like that of Gaston Defferre, Simone Signoret, Eugène Ionesco or Roland Barthes.
In criminal cases, he liked to say that his clients were “atypical”. Georges Kiejman thus defended the far-left activist Pierre Goldman, acquitted of the double murder of pharmacists on boulevard Richard-Lenoir after his second trial in 1976.
He had also represented the interests of the United States during the trial of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the alleged leader of the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Fractions (FARL), sentenced to life imprisonment for the Middle Eastern attacks in Paris in 1986.
He also defended the Italian autonomists, the Cahiers du cinema, the New Wave, Robert de Niro, the prefect Yves Bonnet, the family of Malik Oussekine (the student killed on the sidelines of the demonstrations against the Devaquet laws in 1986), the children General Oufkir detained in Morocco, Nadine Trintignant, activists from the Women’s Liberation Movement, the Aubrac couple, Charlie Hebdo…
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Jacques Chirac’s lawyer in 2011
In May 1991, this dandy became Minister Delegate for Communication, after spending six months as Minister Delegate to the Keeper of the Seals. He was Minister Delegate for International Cooperation and Development between 1992 and 1993.
In 2011, this leftist defended Jacques Chirac in the trial of fictitious jobs at the Paris City Hall.
Married to actress Marie-France Pisier then, since 1983, to journalist Laure de Broglie, he had published in 2021 The man who wanted to be lovedat Grasset, with Vanessa Schneider.