Capital Punishment in France - Abolition

Abolition

The first official debate on the death penalty in France took place on 30 May 1791, with the presentation of a bill aimed at abolishing it. The advocate was Louis-Michel Lepeletier of Saint-Fargeau and the bill was supported by Maximilien de Robespierre. However, the National Constituent Assembly, on 6 October 1791, refused to abolish the death penalty.

On 26 October 1795, the National Convention abolished capital punishment, but only to signify the day of general peace. With the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte, the death penalty was reinstated on 12 February 1810, in the French Imperial Penal Code.

The President of the Republic Armand Fallières, a supporter of abolition, continued to systematically pardon every convict condemned to death over the first three years of his seven-year office.

In 1906 the Commission of the budget of the Chamber of Deputies voted for withdrawing funding for the guillotine, with the aim of stopping the execution procedure. On 3 July 1908 the Garde des Sceaux, Aristide Briand, submitted a draft law to the Deputies, dated November 1906, on the abolition of the death penalty, but, despite the support of Jean Jaurès, the bill was rejected on 8 December by 330 votes to 201.

Under the Vichy Regime, Marshal Pétain refused to pardon five women due to be guillotined (something that had not occurred for more than 50 years). Pétain himself was sentenced to death following the overthrow of the Vichy Regime, but General Charles de Gaulle commuted Pétain's sentence to life imprisonment on the grounds of poor health. Other Vichy officials, including notably Pierre Laval, were shot. Under Vincent Auriol's presidency, three more women were beheaded, one in Algeria, two in France, the last one in Angers, 1949.

With defence by Robert Badinter, Patrick Henry escaped being condemned to death on 21 January 1977 for the murder of a child. Numerous newspapers predicted the end of the death penalty. On 10 September 1977, Hamida Djandoubi was guillotined, the last person executed in France.

Robert Badinter, a longtime opponent of capital punishment and the defending lawyer of some of the last men to be executed, became minister of justice and proposed the final abolition of the death penalty in 1981, which was pushed through the National Assembly with the backing of newly elected president François Mitterrand.