Capital Punishment In France
Capital punishment was practiced in France from the Middle Ages until 1977, when the last execution took place by guillotine, being the only legal method since the French Revolution (with the exception of firing squad for crimes against the safety of the State). The last person to be executed in France was Hamida Djandoubi, who was put to death in September 1977. The death penalty was abolished in French law in 1981. It is now also forbidden by the French constitution, and by several human rights treaties to which France is a party.
Read more about Capital Punishment In France: Abolition, Feasibility of Re-establishment, Variations in French Opinion, Executions Since 1959, Notable Opponents, Notable Advocates
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“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)
“A poor widow, by the name of Baird, has a son in the Army that for some offence has been sentenced to serve a long time without pay, or at most, with very little pay. I do not like this punishment of withholding pay—it falls so very hard upon poor families.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
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—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)