Eric Dupond-Moretti is convinced of this: the fight once morest capital punishment is still relevant. In any case, this is the message that the French Minister of Justice wanted to deliver, Tuesday November 15, during the 8e world congress once morest the death penalty, organized in Berlin by the NGO Together Against the Death Penalty. The Keeper of the Seals – just like Christiane Taubira, his predecessor between 2012 and 2016 – was invited to speak at this international meeting of “abolitionists”. A fight that is close to his heart, according to his entourage.
“It is with honour, pride and emotion that I find you herehe thus launched in the Pierre-Boulez room, packed for the occasion. France got rid of the death penalty in 1981 and since then it has never ceased to reaffirm that justice might not find expression in capital punishment. » And to add: “It is an essential civilizational choice. This fight for humanity which is strewn with pitfalls. Peace, democracy, the rule of law are permanent battles. The same is true for the death penalty. »
During his speech, Mr. Dupond-Moretti shared the stage with his Liberian, Zambian and Sierra Leonean counterparts. These three African countries have made official, with Chile, their renunciation of the death penalty. “It’s a day of celebration, history”welcomed the former criminal lawyer who is, like Emmanuel Macron in 2021, in the fight for “universal abolition”.
” It needs courage “
Mr. Dupond Moretti also insisted on “one of the pitfalls of this fight: public opinion; it takes courage to move towards abolition”. It is true that a large proportion of French people want capital punishment to be reinstated. In the “French Fractures” survey – conducted by Ipsos-Sopra Steria for The world, the Jean-Jaurès Foundation and the Cevipof (Sciences Po) on a panel of 12,000 people and published in September 2022 – 48% of those questioned are in favor of the death penalty. A result fluctuating for ten years, but which always remains within a range between 45% and 55% of respondents.
A little later, in a small committee, the minister continued his remarks and took the opportunity to castigate the “far-right populists” – his preferred target – who “make their honey from repression and the reinstatement of the death penalty”. “The idea that repression puts an end to delinquency is false. Otherwise, it would take a long time for the problem to be solved, he asserted. The extreme right flatters low instincts. What distinguishes civilization from barbarism is the rule of law. The very one that the far right considers a heaviness that should be rid of. »
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