2023-05-09 19:00:02
BUENOS AIRES (AP) — Argentina revoked the decoration it had awarded to French politician Maurice Papon during the last military dictatorship in the South American country for having collaborated with the Nazi regime.
President Alberto Fernández announced the measure to withdraw the Order of May to Papon, convicted in France for crimes once morest humanity, in an act held on Tuesday in which representatives of the Argentine Jewish community participated.
The president argued that the French politician, who died in 2007, “committed 1,600 French people to concentration camps, including 200 boys and girls.”
The measure will be published on Wednesday in the Official Gazette and contemplates that those close to Papon must return the decoration, in addition to prohibiting its use and exhibition for “acts incompatible with the dignity of the Order.”
Fernández affirmed that “this is part of our commitment to keep the claim for the Holocaust alive, for justice to those who committed these atrocities, and to remain at peace with our conscience that there is no genocide carrying an Argentine decoration on his chest.” .
Papon, who held various positions in the French administration between 1931 and 1981, received recognition from the Argentine State in 1979 granted by the then dictator Jorge Rafael Videla during an official visit as French Budget Minister, said a statement from the Presidency.
In 1998 he was sentenced to ten years in prison in France for his direct responsibility for the implementation of anti-Semitic policies with the aim of “de-Jewishizing” the Bordeaux region during the Nazi occupation in World War II (1939-1945). The Frenchman actively collaborated with the Nazis while he was an official of the Vichy regime.
After the conviction, Papon was arrested in 1999 and three years later he was released from prison for health reasons.
The presidents of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), Amos Linetzky; and the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), Jorge Knoblovits. The ambassadors of Israel and France in Argentina also attended.
The Argentine Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Daniel Filmus, explained to journalists that the announced measure responds to a request that French President Emmanuel Macron made in reciprocity to his country’s decision to repeal a decoration awarded in 1985 to the Argentine repressor. Ricardo Cavallo, one of the members of the so-called “death flights” from which detainees during the dictatorship (1976-1983) were thrown into the sea and the Río de La Plata.
At the end of the de facto government, Cavallo, a Navy officer between 1976 and 1979, was sent with a diplomatic post to Paris, where he received recognition from the French government.
Argentina celebrates this year the 40th anniversary of the restoration of democracy. During the military dictatorship some 30,000 people disappeared as a result of the repression, according to human rights organizations.
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