'He is one of those dominant figures in French politics'
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00:00 As you described him, he's to some extent the last of a generation, that whole generation
00:06 who he himself was a child during the Second World War, his father was deported, he's family
00:11 Jewish, his father was deported and died in a concentration camp.
00:15 He himself was a brilliant lawyer who in the 1970s became convinced that capital punishment
00:21 should be abolished for humanitarian reasons.
00:24 And then when François Mitterrand became president in 1981, he appointed, not as his
00:30 first justice minister, his second justice minister at the end of '80, sorry, June '81,
00:34 Badinter.
00:35 And it's Badinter who he's best remembered, as you say, for abolishing capital punishment.
00:40 But actually his period as justice minister from '81 through to '86 launched a whole raft
00:47 of very important reforms that his successors carried on.
00:50 And he's one of those kind of dominant figures in French politics, he's always there, dominant
00:55 not in the sense of wielding power, but people know his name.
00:58 If you say to the ordinary French person, Robert Badinter, they'll say, "Oh, the abolition
01:03 of capital punishment."
01:04 They know about the other things, relaxing the laws regarding decriminalization of homosexuality,
01:10 abolishing the state security court that had been set up to deal with the Algerian war
01:16 and so forth.
01:17 But that's kind of the emblematic role that he played.
01:20 He then goes on to be chair of the Constitutional Council and then finishes his career as a
01:26 senator.
01:27 Yeah.
01:28 So as you say, he really represents a whole era.
01:30 You talked about the World War II, about the war in Algeria, about François Mitterrand's
01:34 tenure in the '80s.
01:36 This is a whole era of France that, are there any traces of that today?
01:41 Are we in the post, are we in a different era now or are we in the succession of it?
01:48 We're into, I think we're into a transitional era, aren't we?
01:52 We've got all of these great names that are passing on, men and women passing away.
01:57 You mentioned his wife as well, Elisabeth Badinter, who's an important figure within
02:03 the feminist movement, not always supported by other feminists, but this whole generation.
02:08 So there's a new, there will be a new generation coming through.
02:10 I can think of other names that are still around from the Mitterrand period, Jacques
02:15 Attali.
02:16 But there is the, someone like Badinter is kind of beginning to close that chapter.
02:21 Yeah.
02:22 And I guess we'll see what comes next.
02:25 Badinter, though, Elisabeth, it is fair to say that she has been criticized in recent
02:29 years.
02:30 It's almost like her vision or their vision is something that no longer kind of sticks
02:34 in French society.
02:35 It's like moved on from what they represent.
02:38 Yes.
02:39 I think that their status as almost intellectual untouchables has been questioned in the sense
02:46 of, you know, that they're unquestionable.
02:48 That's what I mean by it, by that phrase.
02:51 And there's been, there have been criticisms of some of his responses when Dominique Strauss-Kahn
02:57 was arrested back in 2011 for sexual assault.
03:01 He was very loud in denouncing the lack of the presumption of innocence and that created
03:08 some criticism of Robert Badinter.
03:10 So some of that, some of that kind of image has been, perhaps it's lost some of its luster,
03:18 but nevertheless he remains a very important figure.
03:20 And I think most French people will, will remember him positively and remember him for
03:26 the, for legislation such as the abolition of, I mean, that really is the key.
03:31 It's almost like when you talk about slavery in France and you say, "Chouchard, Victor
03:34 Chouchard, this great figure of the 19th century."
03:36 Similarly, Badinter, it's just a, it's the shorthand for the abolition of the death penalty.