Leftist, great criminal lawyer, copyright specialist, Georges Kiejman died on Tuesday May 9, 2023 at the age of 90.
Born August 12, 1932 in Paris, George Kiejman, the son of illiterate Polish Jewish parents who fled poverty, he miraculously escaped the raids and deportation. He said to himself “ Diaspora Jew and Berrichon and died on Tuesday, we learned from his office.
A man on the left, he was close to Pierre Mendès-France and François Mitterrand, of which he was minister. In politics, his career began in May 1991 as Minister Delegate for Communication after a stint of six months as Minister Delegate to the Keeper of the Seals. He was also Minister Delegate for International Cooperation and Development between 1992 and 1993. Some said that after being a great lawyer, I agreed to become a small minister. It’s not completely wrong “, conceded the person concerned.
Resounding court cases
But it is for his actions at the bar as a criminal lawyer and specialist in intellectual property that this “ cultural dandy made itself known. Its history is associated with resounding legal cases.
Georges Kiejman thus defended the far-left activist Pierre Goldman, acquitted of the double murder of the pharmacists on boulevard Richard-Lenoir following his second trial in 1976. He also defended the Italian autonomists, the Cahiers du cinema, the Nouvelle Vague, Robert de Niro, the prefect Yves Bonnet, the family of Malik Oussekine, the student killed during the demonstrations against the Devaquet laws in 1986, the children of General Oufkir detained in Morocco, the Aubrac couple, Charlie Hebdo, Liliane Betencourt… In 2011, he even ensured the defense of Jacques Chirac, then entangled in the trial of fictitious jobs at the Paris City Hall.
“ Biting irony »
And in civilian life, he was a specialist in literary property, publishing, cinema and even the press. With a causticity that made him formidable, he was the lawyer for Gallimard editions for many years, like that of Gaston Defferre, Simone Signoret, Eugène Ionesco or Roland Barthes.
“ He had mad eloquence and biting irony “, said of him the lawyer Richard Malka, one of his former assistants. “ He was dazzling and relentless. He reduced his vis-à-vis to confetti. Beyond his oratorical ease, he was a hard worker and a perfectionist. “. But for this man, being a great lawyer is not only defending a person but defending great causes, explains Vanessa Schneider. She, with Georges Kiejman, wrote a book that retraces the career of the lawyer.
For him, being a lawyer also means defending freedom of expression, democracy, fighting against inequalities… Being there alongside the weakest.
Vanessa Schneider, journalist and writer
>> To read also: Georges Kiejman, the man who wanted to be loved
(With AFP)