19 February 2007
Maurice Papon, the only high-ranking French civil servant ever convicted for his role in the deportation of Jews to the Nazi death camps,, has died in a clinic outside Paris at the weekend, aged 96. As secretary-general of the Gironde prefecture, Papon ordered the deportation of 1,560 Jews, including more than 200 children, between the summer of 1942 and May 1944. He organized convoys from Bordeaux to Drancy, from where his victims were taken to the Auschwitz death camp. For this, he was convicted in April 1998 of "complicity in crimes against humanity".
Papon's crimes were only revealed in 1981, and it took another 17 years before he had to stand trial in 1998 for crimes against humanity. Papon escaped had prosecution for his role in two other atrocities. He was the prefect of the Paris police when up to 30,000 Algerian demonstrators were attacked on October 1961. Police beat them with sticks and threw many from the Pont Saint-Michel into the Seine. The French government acknowledged 40 deaths in 1998, although there are estimates of up to 200 victims. Papon was also believed responsible for the deaths of nine anti-OAS demonstrators at a Paris metro station in February 1962. The OAS was an underground extremist group that opposed independence for Algeria. After serving three years of his ten-year prison term, Papon released in 2002 on grounds of ill-health.
Papon's lawyer, Francis Vuillemin, said he would see to it that Papon would be buried with his Legion of Honor medal, France's highest distinction. "I personally will make sure that the cross of Commander in the Legion of Honor ... accompanies him in his tomb," Vuillemin told "France Info" radio, even though the deceased man was stripped of his right to wear the decoration in 1998. A court later fined Papon in 2004 for wearing the medals in public. The majority leader of France's National Assembly, Bernard Accoyer, called Vuillemin's statement "shocking."
