It has often been said that he was the man of a text, the law to abolish the death penalty. It was wrong. It was much more than that. Robert Badinter, who died on February 9, 2024, at the age of 95, was above all the man of an idea, that of the spirit of justice stronger than the spirit of vengeance. However, he could have been angry with the whole world, and in particular with France; he was 15 years old when his father died, deported and murdered in Sobibor, after being rounded up in Lyon because he was Jewish. Many never recovered from this horror. Robert Badinter made it the driving force of his life, an existence of combat in the service of a more civilized humanity.
The former hidden child completed brilliant studies, he became a lawyer in 1951, at barely 23 years old, and a doctor of law the following year. In 1965, he found himself an associate professor in private law, a competition that took him to the Sorbonne. Sweet smile, bushy eyebrows, Homeric anger in the face of injustice; the Badinter charisma is already operating. In 1958, the lawyer became close friends with François Mitterrand, a young political star. Their companionship will last for forty years. The two men share the same revolts, in particular against this death penalty that Minister Mitterrand allowed to be exercised, with regret, in 1956. In the 1960s, 24 men again had their heads cut off by this guillotine of another time, as Robert Badinter is indignant in Executionhis shocking essay published in 1973, which became a classic studied in high school and in law school.
Appointed Keeper of the Seals in June 1981, the man of the law will not flinch at any time when it comes to abolishing the death penalty or the criminalization of homosexual relations. Carried by the conviction of carrying out a righteous act. As he will unflinchingly protect public freedoms as President of the Constitutional Council, between 1986 and 1995. In fifty years, when the younger generations look back on the Fifth Republic, the names of many Prime Ministers will have been forgotten. That of several presidents, undoubtedly too. Not that of Robert Badinter. Because while careers come and go, great ideas never die. Thank you sir.