Hands Off Cain
France

The death penalty was abolished in France on September 9...

The death penalty was abolished in France on September 9...

1 MIN READ
The death penalty was abolished in France on September 9, 1981, mainly through the efforts of then  Socialist Justice Minister, Robert Badinter. Like its European Union partners, it refuses to send prisoners to countries where they could face the death penalty.
On January 30, 2007, the French National Assembly unanimously decided to remove the death penalty from the French Consitution. ‘Noone can be sentenced to death,’ states the only article of the Consitutional Law Bill that modifies the VIII title of the Fundamental Charter.
The last public execution by guillotine was carried out on June 17, 1939. Eugene Weidmann was executed before a large crowd in Versailles. France then banned public executions, confining them to a prison courtyard, where they continued until 1977. The last non- public use of the guillotine took place at Baumetes Prison, in Marseilles, on September 10, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murder, was beheaded.
On December 17, 2018, as in previous years, France co-sponsored and voted in favour of the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.