- 2/14/2024
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Hello and welcome to a special program here on France 24
00:13 This Hour.
00:14 Starting in a few minutes, the French President Emmanuel
00:16 Macron will lead a tribute honoring Robert Baton d'Aire,
00:20 France's former Minister of Justice,
00:23 who led the fight to end capital punishment.
00:26 He was one of France's most respected intellectuals,
00:30 and he died on Friday at the age of 95.
00:34 Well, the ceremony today is taking place
00:36 at Place Vendome in the center of Paris,
00:38 and our reporter Antonia Kerrigan is there.
00:41 She joins me live on the program now.
00:43 Antonia, just while we wait for this ceremony to get underway,
00:46 give us a sense of the atmosphere today.
00:49 Who's there?
00:51 What's the mood?
00:54 So for the last two hours, Place Vendome,
00:57 outside the Ministry of Justice, has
00:59 been filling up with members of the public and, of course,
01:01 dignitaries.
01:02 We've seen a number of important figures
01:04 from the Socialist Party, including former Prime Minister
01:06 Lionel Jospin, Jean-Marc Ayrault,
01:09 and former President of the Constitutional Council,
01:11 Laurent Fabius.
01:13 We also spoke to a number of members of the public
01:15 who made the journey to be here today, one of whom,
01:18 Danielle, took a two-hour train to be here.
01:21 She said that that seemed like very little for such a man,
01:24 for the man he was.
01:26 Another, Heloise, said she had the good fortune
01:28 to meet him in 2006 when doing charity work in an organization
01:32 that he, too, was involved with, giving classes
01:35 for detainees in prison, which is just
01:37 an example of quite how extensive his work was
01:41 in terms of changing the justice system
01:42 and improving conditions for detainees.
01:45 We also met a law student and a law professor
01:48 who also considered that it was the most obvious thing
01:51 in the world that they were to make the journey today
01:53 to pay their respects as someone who had been just
01:55 such a pioneer in their field.
01:58 We also were lucky enough to meet Jean Minchic, who
02:01 is a film producer.
02:03 He said that he had the good fortune
02:05 to adapt two of Robert Bédinter's books
02:10 into televised films, that he had extremely
02:13 fond memories of meeting him, was extremely moved to hear
02:17 of his passing last week, and that he even
02:21 had one anecdote for us, which is that when he did meet
02:24 the former minister, when he came onto the set
02:26 to meet the cast, he lent the star of the film
02:31 his legal robes in which to film in,
02:33 and he made a real impression on everyone he met there today.
02:37 So there's a real unanimity here that a lot of people
02:40 saying the words "great man" change France for the better,
02:43 and a lot of people also talking about continuing his legacy.
02:47 Antonia Kerrigan at Place Vendôme for now.
02:49 Thank you very much indeed.
02:51 Now, for this special programme this hour,
02:53 we're going to have plenty of analysis,
02:56 and I'm joined by our French politics editor, Mark
02:58 Perelman, who's with me.
02:59 Also here in the studio, William Jullet.
03:03 He's a criminal and human rights lawyer.
03:04 Welcome to you as well, sir.
03:06 Thank you very much for coming in.
03:07 And perhaps let me start with you then, actually,
03:10 because Antonia was just saying that many
03:12 of the people who've turned out at Place Vendôme today
03:16 say he was a great man.
03:18 That's why they're turning out in such large numbers.
03:20 But actually, who was he?
03:22 Why is he such a big deal?
03:23 Because it's not normal that you have a justice minister honoured
03:27 in such a way in France, is it?
03:30 I don't know if it's not normal.
03:31 I think it is quite normal when one looks at who he was.
03:38 The man, I think that is the first thing
03:40 that one must say about him, the man.
03:44 So the man was a lawyer.
03:48 Not only he was a man of the arts, he was a writer.
03:52 He was a politician.
03:56 He was a minister.
03:58 He was a member of the Sénat for more than a decade.
04:04 He was president of the Conseil Constitutionnel,
04:06 the Constitutional Supreme Court, which is not nothing.
04:10 And I think that he was also the man of his personal family history.
04:19 And all that put together is, I think, what we can see here.
04:25 And I think that we will get to that, I'm sure, during this show.
04:30 But he was all about ideas and about how you fight
04:37 for what you think is right for yourself
04:42 and for the country you belong to,
04:47 against what he used to call maybe the dark forces,
04:52 which are not only at stake in France,
04:54 but everywhere around the world.
04:57 And I think he was about all of that.
05:00 And I think that is why today is what it is.
05:05 And can I just ask you, you're speaking with quite a bit of passion there.
05:08 As a lawyer yourself, did he inspire you?
05:12 Of course he did. Not only him.
05:14 I've been inspired when I was a young lawyer by other lawyers.
05:19 I was lucky enough to be an intern with Henri Leclerc,
05:24 who is another and who obviously is part of what is happening
05:31 and what was yesterday happening before the Court of Justice.
05:36 And he was "sur les marches du Palais," another huge man.
05:43 And other criminal lawyers who, for some and too many actually,
05:49 passed these past years.
05:53 Pierre Haïk, Hervé Témime, Jean-Yves Liénard,
05:55 and all these people who have been
06:01 a lot for me as a young lawyer, and Robert Ballenter,
06:05 of course for his fights, the ones we knew about,
06:10 but also some other things he did when he was a minister,
06:14 that today we do with and try to help our clients with
06:22 in regards to prison conditions, in regards to,
06:25 I imagine we'll speak about that too,
06:28 to human rights at European level.
06:31 He is the one who enabled people to go against the French state
06:39 before the European Court of Human Rights.
06:41 That is also thanks to him.
06:44 And so as a lawyer, and I must say as a man, yes,
06:49 the man has done a lot for me.
06:54 Interesting.
06:55 And Marc Perelman then, as you're hearing there,
06:58 he really was a towering intellectual figure, wasn't he?
07:03 He was indeed.
07:04 You have this rare mix of a politician,
07:07 because as was rightly pointed out, he was a politician,
07:10 he was a justice minister, he was a senator,
07:13 he was, yes, a politician, but also an intellectual in a way,
07:19 and a lawyer.
07:20 So you have-- and this doesn't happen very often.
07:23 He has obviously a tragic personal history
07:28 and sometimes this clearly tainted his work
07:33 and in defense of human rights.
07:35 But yes, the word humanist is often
07:37 used because he defended a number of causes,
07:41 obviously the abolition of the capital punishment
07:44 here in France after a very, very tough fight,
07:48 improving prison conditions, improving
07:50 the support for those facing the justice system,
07:54 but also human rights internationally.
07:57 I remember doing a report on the LGBT community in Cameroon,
08:01 and he insisted upon coming here on France 24 in a debate
08:06 we held after the report.
08:08 And obviously, he had really no dog in this fight,
08:11 if I may use, but for him it was important
08:15 because he decriminalized homosexuality in France
08:17 in 1982, very early on as we see the French president arriving
08:22 now.
08:23 But he also fought for those rights in places like Cameroon
08:26 and he also fought for the abolition of the death penalty
08:29 in many other areas of the world.
08:32 And the French president is probably going to allude to this.
08:35 So he did a lot of work as a justice minister,
08:39 as an intellectual.
08:41 And yes, he's one of the last giants of generation,
08:46 a golden generation, some might say,
08:48 of lawyers intellectual who is now passing away and passing
08:51 the torch to younger generations as we now
08:55 see the French president arriving and saluting
08:58 the family, his wife, Elisabeth Badinter,
09:01 with the gray hairs just behind.
09:03 And perhaps just talk us through, then,
09:05 Marc, who is attending this ceremony today
09:08 and who isn't as well?
09:09 Because there's been some controversy
09:11 about the politicians invited.
09:12 Well, we see the president next to the prime minister,
09:16 Gabriel Adal, is the widow of Robert Badinter, Elisabeth
09:19 Badinter, the justice minister, probably family members,
09:24 members.
09:26 This is the current head of the Constitutional Council,
09:28 Laurent Fabius, one of his predecessors
09:31 was Robert Badinter.
09:32 But yes, on the political side, there was a controversy
09:35 because his widow didn't want the national rally
09:39 and didn't want the far left, La France Insoumise, to attend.
09:43 Because she said that those two extremes
09:47 was exactly what her late husband didn't like.
09:52 And he didn't want to see them.
09:54 The national rally had Marine Le Pen said, I'm not coming.
09:58 I understand this.
10:00 However, the far left says, we're coming.
10:02 This is a national tribute.
10:03 We shouldn't be excluded.
10:04 And so we are hearing that some of their MPs
10:08 are in attendance, obviously not in the front row.
10:11 We haven't seen them yet, then.
10:12 No.
10:14 Can we talk about the location, gentlemen, perhaps,
10:16 where this is taking place?
10:18 Place Vendome, normally great tributes like this in France
10:22 for those that have died and are being honored
10:24 are held in places like Envalide.
10:27 Why Place Vendome?
10:28 Perhaps William Julliet, we'll go to you first.
10:31 Because of justice.
10:33 This is, we can see it on the screen, Ministère de la Justice.
10:37 Because I think Robert Badinter was about justice,
10:41 as I said, as a man, as a justice minister,
10:46 and the justice arm, justice minister,
10:49 Eric Dupont-Moretti, who is also a former colleague, is there.
10:53 So this is the justice ministry, is it, right in front of--
10:55 Oh, it is.
10:56 Definitely.
10:57 The French justice ministry is Place Vendome.
11:01 And so that is why the ceremony is taking place there.
11:05 Because this is what he has been all about,
11:08 and on all areas of what he's done,
11:13 as a politician, as a lawyer.
11:17 So that's the reason.
11:18 Absolutely.
11:19 The coffin then just starting to arrive there
11:21 as this national tribute gets underway.
11:23 Perhaps let's just have a look at the scenes
11:25 there at Place Vendome.
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15:50 You're watching our live coverage on France 24 to the tribute honoring Robert Batender,
15:56 who died on Friday at the age of 95.
15:58 And we're looking here at some images from his early life.
16:03 And perhaps we should talk a little bit about that then, Mark Perelman,
16:07 and how that perhaps informed the politician and the intellectual that he became,
16:11 because his family, his parents, fled the pogroms in Eastern Europe.
16:16 He's Jewish.
16:18 Is that a part of his political story, do you think?
16:21 Did that inform the kind of intellectual that he became?
16:24 Yes, clearly.
16:26 I mean, he didn't talk too much about it until very late in his life,
16:29 where he wrote about his grandparents and so on.
16:34 But obviously, yes, it had a clear impact on him.
16:38 His father was deported from the southeastern town of Lyon in 1943,
16:45 and he never came back.
16:47 And the person who signed the deportation order was the head of the Nazi secret police
16:53 in that region, Klaus Barbie.
16:55 And when Robert Badinter was justice minister, Klaus Barbie was caught and brought back to France,
17:01 and he was tried.
17:03 And Robert Badinter was the minister of the man who sent his father to the death camp.
17:11 And obviously, clearly, this is where it crossed his personal history.
17:17 He always said, you know, I'm glad we didn't have the death penalty anymore,
17:21 because this was not about vengeance, but this was about justice, and this is who we are.
17:27 And so clearly those values always inform his behavior as a politician, as a justice minister,
17:35 as an intellectual.
17:37 He could not forget his personal history, but he also served France.
17:43 As I said, he was justice minister, member of the Constitutional Council.
17:47 He always said, yes, I'm Jewish and I'm French.
17:51 This is how it is, but I can be both.
17:53 And this is not a contradiction in terms of how I decide and how I behave.
17:59 And William Jullier, you were nodding as Marc Paramon was speaking there.
18:03 So your thoughts perhaps then on how his personal story, his personal history influenced who he became.
18:09 I think that's true for every one of us, but for him,
18:13 I'd like just one quote on this.
18:19 He at one moment wrote, "The real life, the only life was that of the mind.
18:27 The real revenge on prejudice and ignorance was knowledge.
18:31 It is the only thing that liberates.
18:34 For men like my father, knowledge was essential."
18:38 And I wrote also that when he was protected by people living in a village,
18:48 I think near the Alps, once he fled before getting caught by the Gestapo,
18:56 he had a teacher who was also a militia and who I think was arrested.
19:04 And he wrote about this man that he hated as a militia, but also admired as a teacher.
19:13 And I think that this was when his fight against death penalty started,
19:19 because at that time, militias were killed.
19:23 And I agree with what has just been said,
19:28 that I think Robert Badinter is about this connection,
19:35 this nexus between knowledge being a man of the age of enlightenment
19:42 and this man of combat, of fight, politically, legally as a lawyer.
19:52 And I think that he clearly became that because of that history,
20:00 which is his and about which, as you said, he was very discreet.
20:07 And he was indeed in position when Klaus Barbie was arrested.
20:13 So he obviously didn't prosecute himself.
20:17 But I also read that he treated and reviewed this case in an impeccable way as a professional.
20:27 And I think that this is also something about the man,
20:31 which is that he has always been a man of technicality, integrity and precision
20:41 in everything he was doing.
20:43 He was not a man of making color for color and being a good doctor just to show
20:54 that he is someone on the scene.
20:56 But he was about doing the right thing in a very right way.
21:02 And one of those things, as you say, was the abolition of capital punishment in France.
21:07 And Mark Perelman, at least to me,
21:09 it did seem quite extraordinary that up until 1981,
21:14 the guillotine was used in France as capital punishment to kill people
21:18 who'd been convicted of serious crimes.
21:20 And when Ballantin spoke out against that, he was actually in the minority, wasn't he?
21:25 Lots of French people thought they should stick with that.
21:27 Tell us a bit about that moment.
21:29 Yes. Well, we just heard at the beginning of this film tribute,
21:32 the sentences he used in front of the National Assembly saying,
21:36 "I'm asking you to abolish the death penalty."
21:39 This was a very, very famous speech at a very fraught time
21:43 because the majority of the French were still in favor of the death penalty.
21:48 And when François Mitterrand, the socialist president, was elected in 1981,
21:52 Robert Badinter was a member of the Socialist Party,
21:55 and he convinced him that this needed to be done as soon as possible.
22:00 Why? Because he didn't have the support of the majority of the French.
22:04 He was able to push this through Parliament at the very beginning of the mandate of François Mitterrand
22:11 because they still had this kind of--as it's known in politics--the honeymoon period
22:15 where you open a new chapter, and this was done.
22:20 But he had fierce opposition in Parliament, fierce opposition outside of Parliament.
22:26 So, yes, he was a brilliant lawyer, a humanist, and so on, but he was also a political fighter.
22:31 He knew how to fight politically, and he had to do so.
22:35 Even the other measures, he got rid of special courts that were operating essentially
22:40 without proper jurisdiction here in France, decriminalized homosexuality, as I said,
22:48 improved prison conditions, and this put him in the crosshairs of a lot of police unions, for instance.
22:54 They came in front of the Justice Ministry to shout against him.
22:58 He was a deeply unpopular man at some point, so this was very, very difficult.
23:04 He was able to hold tight, but even if you ask the French today about the death penalty,
23:11 you see that it's not that 90% of the French are against the death penalty. Far from it.
23:17 So it was a tough fight, and no one is going to reestablish the death penalty as we speak right now,
23:24 but this was a major, major fight.
23:27 And William Jullier, we're waiting for Emmanuel Macron to speak, the French president,
23:32 to honor Ballantyre today, but just maybe you could pick up a little bit on what Marc was saying there
23:38 about the death penalty and the particular important role he played there.
23:43 It was a huge role. Then would one want to restore death penalty in France or anywhere else in Europe?
23:55 It would not be possible. We would need to withdraw from international conventions,
24:02 from the European Convention on Human Rights, because death penalty is forbidden by international law.
24:09 I think we should just perhaps take a moment here to listen to the French president, Emmanuel Macron,
24:14 who's just walking up to the podium to give his tribute to Ballantyre.
24:18 Let's listen to what the president has to say.
24:34 The blood on the blade, a man's life cut short.
24:46 The morbid scene of guillotining is something that Robert Ballantyre saw in November 1972 in the Sante prison.
25:01 Before that, he had made a desperate appeal to save his client's life, his client Roger Bontemps.
25:08 He was guilty, but he had not committed murder.
25:13 There was the trial lost in Troyes.
25:17 His appeals for forgiveness, the final days of the condemned prisoner.
25:23 There was the terrible dilemma of who of the two prisoners, Bontemps, or the other, should be executed first.
25:35 And it was Bontemps. It was Bontemps who was killed or executed first.
25:42 After that, it was darkness, the smell of blood, the faces of the executioners, death.
25:57 Death that came as justice killed a citizen.
26:06 He was once told that he would become a real lawyer after his first client had been killed.
26:15 And indeed, that day in November, he became a lawyer.
26:22 Before that, he had been a partisan for the abolition of capital punishment.
26:27 And after that day, he became a fighter for its abolition.
26:33 It was a very important part of his life.
26:36 In order not to lose faith in mankind, we must not kill other men, even when they are terribly guilty.
26:47 He was always the lawyer for the cause of abolition.
26:56 In January 1977, he went back to Troyes, to the same court where Buffet and Bontemps had been judged and tried.
27:09 And there he defended Patrick Henry, who had killed a child, and the crowds were calling for his death.
27:19 And Robert Benettel said, "The dead are listening to you."
27:25 And the ghost of Bontemps was certainly listening to him.
27:29 The dead were his conscience, the memory from the afterlife.
27:34 And he was wary of their judgment.
27:39 He was not playing a part.
27:42 He was genuinely a soul crying out to save life.
27:49 "If you killed Patrick Henry," he said, "then your justice is unjust."
27:54 His fight against death became his whole purpose in life.
28:00 After Patrick Henry, Robert Benettel saved five other individuals who had been condemned to death.
28:08 "The dead are listening. The dead. His dead."
28:15 Simon, his father, arrested in 1943 by Klaus Barbie's forces.
28:25 His grandmother deported at 79.
28:30 His other grandmother, Edie, who died alone in Paris. Neftul, his uncle, his cousins.
28:38 So many members of his family decimated by the Shoah.
28:42 Death, death, constantly with him every time he was controlled by German officers in the village in Savoie,
28:53 where he was hiding with the rest of his family.
28:56 Death always on his trail.
29:00 And after the war, the deaths of Auschwitz that hung heavy over his life.
29:05 He was haunted by death.
29:07 And this is probably why he spent all of his life defending life,
29:15 defending what we have here on earth and what we can aspire to, a rage for living.
29:25 He loved words. He loved traveling.
29:29 He went nights without sleep to study, to become a doctor, to prepare his classwork.
29:36 He loved life. He loved a beautiful life.
29:39 Theater, opera, life for love.
29:42 He married Elizabeth, a couple united by universal values.
29:50 They went through troubled times, through trials, but also through love and happiness
29:55 with their three children, Judith, Simon and Benjamin.
29:59 The light of a great love and the love of enlightenment.
30:05 Condorcet, the revolution and the republic.
30:12 The dead are listening.
30:16 What Robert Benatar was hearing on that day in September in 1981,
30:22 he was hearing the voices of Jaurès, Clemenceau, Briand, Camus, Victor Hugo.
30:29 In the National Assembly, to defend the law abolishing capital punishment,
30:36 the Minister of Justice was carrying forth François Mitterrand's campaign promise
30:44 as he ran for president. Despite public opinion, Robert Benatar spoke
30:50 an unforgettable speech against capital punishment.
30:57 Robert Benatar spoke out. Is capital punishment dissuasive?
31:05 He said no. Patrick Henry himself said that the death penalty
31:10 was no way of deterring death. All of the clergy were opposed to the death penalty.
31:19 And the death penalty was espoused by the worst dictators.
31:23 Robert Benatar spoke of justice, justice that sometimes is fallible, that makes mistakes.
31:30 So can we accept to have people die by mistake, that we can have a man cut in two
31:37 in the prison courtyard and discover later that it was a mistake?
31:41 No, it's not a question of politics. It is a question of morality, of conscience.
31:46 Robert Benatar convinced the National Assembly.
31:52 A majority of members of parliament voted for the law.
31:59 A majority from the left and also leaders of the opposition under Jacques Chirac.
32:05 Robert Benatar won his cause. He won his greatest trial.
32:12 Victor Hugo, one of his models, had written in favor of abolition
32:26 and Robert Benatar carried that forward into 1981, the year of abolition.
32:32 Was that enough for him? No. He also sought to make justice more humane and humanity more just.
32:41 Inspired by Condorcet, he continued to fight as a minister of justice for life, quite simply,
32:59 with no exceptions, the life of homosexuals who had been discriminated against.
33:05 Robert Benatar was responsible for decriminalizing homosexuality.
33:11 He was interested in the lives of victims, citizens' rights.
33:16 He was responsible for upending the special courts.
33:22 He worked at the Court of Human Rights and made French citizens eligible to be heard in the Human Rights Courts.
33:37 He always defended the right to become a better person, even in prison and even for guilty people.
33:44 His life was threatened. His honor was sullied because for five years he was the minister who was the most attacked in France.
33:55 Hateful speeches were made against him and even right here in the Place Vendôme.
34:00 Here you applauded him and yet in the past we heard people speaking out in hatred against him,
34:07 attacking him because of the abolition of capital punishment.
34:11 Life, sacred life, guaranteed by the rule of law, by the fundamental laws of the Republic,
34:18 the importance of the human person included in the decision by the Constitutional Council,
34:25 of which he was the president and which he was especially proud of.
34:29 A life of study and wisdom.
34:32 At the head of this institution, he devoted himself to defending the dignity of each person and the unity of the Republic.
34:40 And he went to the Luxembourg Palace to work as a senator as well and continue protecting lives,
34:48 lives who had been broken by war.
34:54 He saw so many countries emerge from dictatorship and he helped many countries write their new constitutions.
35:06 Robert Badinter chose life, happy life, life in the Republic.
35:17 He remembered his parents' dreams, Jews from Bessarabia, for whom France, in Zola's words and the words of the Marseillais,
35:28 lived in heroic acts in Savoie as refugees.
35:38 He was protected by French citizens who said nothing to the Germans.
35:42 Robert Badinter, the Republic, incarnated in a man.
35:48 Life against death.
35:51 This life was with him until his last breath.
35:56 The anger that he had against negationists who denied the Holocaust
36:02 and who, even though he had to go to court again to defend himself,
36:09 his life inspired many people, people who knew how lucky they were to encounter this giant of a man.
36:17 And I measure my great fortune in having encountered him.
36:26 For all of the French who today know how much we will miss the strength of his anger,
36:33 the strength of his light which made us all better, the deaths are listening.
36:39 Yes, the dead are listening.
36:43 Robert Badinter is now listening as well.
36:48 He is looking upon us.
36:51 The moral conscience that remained steady, and even now in death, and even now in our grief,
36:59 you are leaving us at a time when your old adversaries' hatred and forgetfulness seem to be making ground again.
37:08 Your ideals, our ideals, are threatened.
37:13 The universal value that makes all lives equal, that protects free life, memory that remembers all lives.
37:21 So today, we swear, I swear, I take the oath that I will be true to your teachings and your commitment.
37:32 I will be faithful, and we will speak out above negationists, anti-Semites, and others who would like to reduce you to silence.
37:45 I will be faithful.
37:50 You have left us such a vibrant history of pleadings, of speeches,
38:00 and we will know that your voice has truly been heard when the final country-practicing capital punishment will have abolished it.
38:08 We will be faithful. We will continue your battle.
38:11 We will be faithful to those who were killed, for those who did not kill, for all of your dead,
38:18 and for those who must be saved, for Simon, Edith, Chinea, Naftoul.
38:25 We will be faithful.
38:28 For this part of humanity that was so long forgotten during this century and that remains vulnerable,
38:34 we will be faithful because you, today, stand out in the crowd by your faithfulness to us.
38:48 With your lightning smile and your heavy eyebrows, your anger could be ignited suddenly,
38:57 and you remain faithful to us as you did every year in your silence as well.
39:03 We stand among men, rue Sainte-Catherine in the city of Lyon, commemorating the day that your father,
39:14 on the 9th of February, was taken away to a concentration camp.
39:19 You are here today among us.
39:24 The days of life and death are suspended, defeated, abolished.
39:34 And now we have a time for the nation to recognize you.
39:41 And your name will be inscribed next to those who have done so much for human progress and France.
39:49 You will be laid to rest in the Panthéon.
39:54 Vive la République. Vive la France.
39:57 (applause)
40:25 (applause)
40:36 (drumming)
40:48 (taps)
41:17 (taps)
41:20 (taps)
41:22 (taps)
41:32 (taps)
41:42 (silence)
42:09 (singing in French)
42:14 (singing in French)
42:18 (singing in French)
42:22 (singing in French)
42:25 (singing in French)
42:33 (singing in French)
42:41 (singing in French)
42:50 (singing in French)
43:11 (applause)
43:26 The French national anthem, the Marseillaise capping the tribute there by the French President Emmanuel Macron to Robert Batander and Mark Perelman.
43:39 The President there saying that the French Republic was incarnated in that man that was Robert Batander.
43:47 What did you make of what the President had to say?
43:50 Well, obviously there is this sentence that Robert Batander will always be the lawyer who abolished the death penalty.
44:01 And obviously he recounted how as a lawyer who defended people sentenced to death, this affected him.
44:09 This made him also someone who was reviled as a lawyer.
44:13 He was known as the lawyer defending the murderers and he was attacked for it.
44:18 And so when he became Justice Minister, this was his very first fight.
44:24 He convinced President-elect François Mitterrand to make it a priority and he was able to push this through Parliament despite very, very vivid opposition, some very personal opposition against him.
44:38 And he did say, he repeated several times during his speech that the death are listening, how Robert Batander was haunted by the death because of his family history, because of his dealings with people who were sentenced to death.
44:55 And this is why he embraced life. He alluded to that.
45:00 And towards the end of the speech, he said that some of the values defended by Robert Batander were currently under threat, that he vowed to fight revisionism, anti-Semitism.
45:12 And at the end, he made an announcement that was expected, is that Robert Batander would ultimately be ushered in the Pantheon.
45:23 This is the temple, if you wish, it's not a religious temple, it's a secular temple of the French Republic where all the great French men and now women are put in a ceremony that's a very formal solemn.
45:39 It will take time, but this is obviously the ultimate tribute of the Republic to this towering figure we just heard the President talk about.
45:49 Yeah, and William Jullier, the President, they're also saying we will be faithful, Robert Batander, to your legacy, he said.
45:57 What did you make of that as a lawyer yourself?
46:02 First thing I would like to add to what was just said about the death listening, I think that is a very important line which came to the surface on other occasions with Robert Batander.
46:22 There was this angry moment he had during the anniversary of the 50th anniversary of the Veldiv Roundup, where he got into a very angry mood,
46:40 addressing the people there who had whistled against François Mitterrand and telling them that he was ashamed of them screaming and yelling after the Kaddish prayer was pronounced,
46:58 and telling them that what the deaf were waiting because they were listening was their silence and not their shout.
47:08 I think that there has always been in regards to this, to answer your question, the first legacy of course is this one, the abolition of the death penalty,
47:18 but not only, it was also indicated that there were other bills that were passed during him being Justice Minister.
47:30 But I think that to bring something from my lawyer's perspective, I think one of his legacies is that we lawyers are men of action, of fighting for maybe especially us criminal lawyers.
47:54 We defend our clients, some are criminals, some are murderers, and another wonderful quote from Robert Batander is,
48:05 "The six men whom I save from death penalty will be my witnesses when I appear before the Lord.
48:13 I'm a humble sinner like everyone else, but I have witnesses for my defense, most of them murderers."
48:21 Which is an incredible thing to say, and I think this is what also is the main legacy for me,
48:29 is that Robert Batander showed that what we do as lawyers is we fight for someone we're defending,
48:38 but we also fight for values that go beyond the fate of our client, which for us obviously is very important.
48:50 And goes maybe even beyond what we are, and I think it's about these values we fight for,
49:02 sometimes putting ourselves in difficult situations because some people don't agree with what we're doing,
49:09 or don't understand maybe what this beyond is.
49:12 And I think that for us lawyers, even if he was not only a criminal lawyer, he was also a corporate lawyer,
49:20 and I think started his career with being the legal representative of Brigitte Bardot, Charlie Chaplin,
49:28 so he did lots of other legal cases, but for me as a lawyer, the legacy is about that.
49:37 Fascinating, thank you for sharing those insights, and perhaps beyond the law, Marc,
49:42 it's worth talking explicitly about his politics, isn't it?
49:47 Because even last year, just before he died, he was still talking about politics,
49:53 he talked about the war in Ukraine, he reminded French people not to forget there's still a war on European soil,
49:58 so he was still motivated, wasn't he? Even to the very end of his life.
50:02 Yes, he kept granting interviews, writing books, and being someone who was present, he didn't retire.
50:11 I mean, this with his wife, Elisabeth, who was a famous philosopher, feminist, and so on,
50:18 they were in a way a power couple on the intellectual scene, what they were saying on issues of society,
50:25 and death, and women's rights, or gay rights, or many other human rights issues,
50:32 was something that was listened to, and they used it, obviously, they used it because Robert Banninter, as I said,
50:39 was also a politician, and he was very close to François Mitterrand, who we later learned had a dark side to himself,
50:49 especially during World War II, especially because his ties with the Vichy regime were much closer than some people thought,
51:00 and this was very, very difficult for Robert Banninter, given his personal history,
51:05 to have served and been faithful to a president whose history was not as clean as people thought,
51:13 and this was something that Robert Banninter was not really at ease with, that he didn't really want to talk about in public,
51:21 and he also had a more personal history because François Mitterrand had a child out of wedlock,
51:28 and one of the very few people who knew about it was Robert Banninter, but nevertheless, he was seen as a moral figure,
51:39 someone who had gravitas, who was not into the political infighting that we're seeing right now.
51:48 He was clearly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism, the return of war on European soil, but he also defended minorities.
51:59 I remember him giving an interview where he was warning that Muslims in Europe were now being discriminated in a way similar than Jews had been before World War II,
52:12 so he was really someone who didn't hesitate to give his point of view on many, many issues,
52:20 and so this is why he was not only the justice minister who abolished the death penalty over 40 years ago.
52:28 He's always someone who was very, very present, and just the last thing, those tributes are very solemn moments,
52:35 but we heard a few times when the coffin arrived after the speech, after the national anthem, people clapping, and this is rather unusual.
52:43 So let's say it's a way of paying a tribute to someone who always valued life over death,
52:50 and he said we need to see the light side of things, the shiny side of things, rather than always wonder about the dark side.
52:59 That's a nice way to end, Marc, but let me give the final word actually to William Julliet.
53:05 We have one or two minutes left, sir.
53:08 I read in the biography of Batonterre that he was described as a contemporary legend,
53:16 someone who can be held up there with the likes of Simon Wey, who pushed through legalizing abortion in France.
53:22 In a couple of words, how would you sum up his legacy and the fact that, as Emmanuel Macron said there, he is to be laid to rest in the Pantheon?
53:31 I think what you just said is the end word. He died nearly 100 years old.
53:39 Edgar Morin is still alive, I think. He's 101, 102. He just wrote a book.
53:46 The painter who passed away not a long time ago also, who was 100 years old.
53:57 These men, I think, are legends because they have nearly a view on 100 years of life,
54:06 and what they all say, for the ones who become legends, is support the energies of life, of hope,
54:20 of what is good in a human being against the dark forces at work everywhere.
54:30 And this is about him also on the international scene, on the European scene, and everywhere he was, he fighted for that.
54:40 And I think this is why he deserves the Parlement de Panthéon,
54:45 and also because he is amongst these who continued until his last moments to preach for this cause.
54:56 It's been a real pleasure to hear your views, William Jullier, criminal lawyer for us, Mark Perelman as well.
55:03 You've been watching our live coverage here on France 24, honouring Robin Bannenter at Place Vendôme today.
55:10 Thanks for watching. Do stay with us on France 24 World News coming up in about 10 minutes.
55:14 But from me, bye for now.
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