Macron announces “relaunching the fight for universal abolition” during the EU presidency in 2022

A wishful thinking for the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in France? Emmanuel Macron announced this Saturday that France would “relaunch the fight for the universal abolition” of the death penalty by organizing a “meeting at the highest level” to “convince” the leaders of countries still applying it to ” the urgency to abolish it ”.

He indicated that within the framework of the French presidency of the EU, in the first half of 2022, France would organize “in Paris with the NGO Ensemble contre la penalty de mort, a meeting at the highest level bringing together the civil societies of the States still applying the death penalty or a moratorium in order to convince their leaders of the importance and the urgency of abolishing it ”.

“She does not defend society, she dishonors it”

“I am announcing to you on October 9, 2021 that France will relaunch the fight for universal abolition”, declared the Head of State in a speech delivered at the Pantheon to mark the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the penalty of died in France.

Before him, Robert Badinter, the former Minister of Justice who had voted for abolition in 1981, had affirmed his “absolute conviction: the death penalty is doomed to disappear in the world because it is a shame for humanity” . “It does not defend society, it dishonors it”, he added in a firm voice under the dome of the Pantheon. “Long live universal abolition! », He concluded.

Emmanuel Macron recalled that, in 1981, France was “the 35th state to abolish the death penalty”. “106 States have so far taken this path while 50 others respect a de jure or de facto moratorium on executions,” he said. But he lamented that “483, an undoubtedly underestimated number, executions” were carried out around the world in 2020. “483 state murders administered by 33 political regimes who mostly share a shared taste for despotism , the rejection of the universality of human rights, ”he said, while the death penalty is in force in China, the United States or India.

A long struggle

At the end of the speech, the Head of State and Robert Badinter visited the exhibition “Un combat capital” which traces the history of the political fight for the abolition of the death penalty in France, from the 18th century to These days. Among the some 200 guests who took place under the dome of the Pantheon, were Prime Minister Jean Castex, Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti, Presidents of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand and of the Senate Gérard Larcher, but also former collaborators and ministers of François Mitterrand such as Pierre Joxe, Hubert Védrine and Jean-Louis Bianco. Members of the Badinter family were also present.

The bill on the abolition of the death penalty was adopted by the National Assembly on September 18, 1981, four months after the election of François Mitterrand to the Élysée, then on September 30 by the senators. The scrapping of the guillotine was enacted on October 9.

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