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Remembering France’s Minister of Justice Who Was Shaped by Holocaust Past
Robert Badinter was a French lawyer, politician, and author who enacted the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981, while serving as Minister of Justice under François Mitterrand. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Until 1981, the guillotine continued to be used as the means of implementing death sentences in France. However, in that year, France abolished the death penalty. The person who played a pivotal role in achieving this outcome was a Jewish lawyer, Robert Badinter, who had just been named Minister of Justice by the newly-elected President François Mitterand.
Badinter, who died at age 95 on February 9, was a renowned lawyer, a politician, and a historian. He was proud of his Jewishness.
Some years ago, I had the honor of meeting Badinter here in Washington at a lunch organized by B’nai B’rith during one of Badinter’s tours of the United States in his unsuccessful effort to persuade Americans to follow France’s example and eliminate the death penalty. Sitting next to Badinter for a couple of hours, speaking in my native French, I discovered a brilliant exponent for liberal causes. Even though we did not agree on much, we got along famously.
Our common interests in the law, about history, and in matters Jewish made conversation easy. The fact that the bushy eyebrowed lawyer, whose family came from Bessarabia in Eastern Europe, looked strikingly like one of my uncles, made me feel a certain closeness to Badinter.
Indeed, his family’s history is a reflection of both the suffering of the Jewish people in the 20th century and the success that Jews have experienced in the Western world. His immigrant parents met in France, married and had two sons, of which Robert was the younger. When Nazis occupied France in 1940, in an effort to evade German persecution, the family left Paris and moved south. Unfortunately, in 1943, Badinter’s father was arrested by Klaus Barbie, the sadistic SS officer in charge of the region, and was sent to Sobibor, where he was murdered.
Following the liberation of France, Badinter went on to study law. As a criminal lawyer, he defended a number of murderers and attended the execution of one of them. That experience turned him into a ferocious opponent of the death penalty. His opposition bore fruit when, having been named Minister of Justice, he was able to persuade the French National Assembly to vote for the abolition of the death penalty in spite of significant public dissent.
He also championed other causes, including, in particular, the decriminalizing of homosexuality. At the end of his term as Minister of Justice, for nine years he served as President of France’s Constitutional Council, effectively its Supreme Court.
While pursuing his legal and political career, he became an author. He most notably wrote an important book regarding the grant of equality to French Jews during the French Revolution. He also wrote a book that was significantly less laudatory of France. That book, entitled An Ordinary Antisemitism, focused on the role of the Paris Bar during the German occupation. In meticulous detail, Badinter described the complicity of the Paris Bar in the implementation of the discriminatory laws which sought to strip the vast majority of Jewish lawyers of their right to practice law.
In an annual lecture that I give to law students at the Holocaust Museum, I cite Badinter’s book as an example of how lawyers can lose their moral compasses when they get too focused on the details of law practice and fail to keep their eyes on the moral components of the law. My reference to Badinter’s research invariably has an impact on my audience.
Most recently, Badinter wrote a moving book about his grandmother, Idriss, who had immigrated to France in response to the pogroms in her native Bessarabia. He wrote with affection and respect of the struggles of the immigrant generation in adapting to life in a new land. Not surprisingly, the book struck a chord with the French public and was widely read.
All of Badinter’s accomplishments have had a profound impact on France. His importance to France is such that he will be given a special public tribute by President Macron. It is possible that he will ultimately be buried in the Pantheon in Paris, the mausoleum in which France’s greatest heroes are interred. Only three other Jews have been similarly honored to date.
While all of Badinter’s accomplishments are an eloquent memorial to a distinguished Frenchman, I will always remember him by reason of an exchange we had at our lunch. When speaking about the Holocaust and his family’s suffering, he noted that, as the son of a martyred father, he had had an uncommon opportunity to rectify a terrible wrong. In 1983, while he was Minister of Justice, Klaus Barbie, the man who had arrested and sent Badinter’s father to his death at Sobibor, was found in Bolivia and extradited to France. Badinter told me that, in memory of his father’s suffering, he decided that it would be appropriate to reopen the abandoned prison in which his father had been incarcerated by Barbie, and that he sent Barbie there to serve out a life sentence.
But I also noted that, even though Barbie had been previously sentenced to death in absentia, long before the abolition of the death penalty (and notwithstanding his personal desire to avenge his father), Badinter stood by his opposition to the death penalty and did not wish nor seek to have his father’s killer executed. He thereby demonstrated a rare willingness to place principle over the powerful personal desire to avenge the brutal death of a beloved parent.
Badinter was an important French political figure, a brilliant lawyer, an erudite historian, and a man of principle. He was, as President Macron stated recently, “a man of great significance.”
Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of a national law firm. He is the author of Lobbying For Equality, Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights during the French Revolution, published by HUC Press.
The post Remembering France’s Minister of Justice Who Was Shaped by Holocaust Past first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.