Papon

Maurice Papon

Complicity of crimes
against

humanity. The sub prefect

and chief of the "Jewish

affairs" section of the

Gironde department

(capital-Bordeaux) under

the World War II fascist

Vichy government, is

judged, 50 years later, for

aiding and abetting the

deportation of Jews to the

concentration camps of

Nazi Germany.

Following a brilliant career

as a top-level civil servant,

business executive, and

government minister, he

became the symbol of

French refusal to admit

official responsibility for the

crimes of the collaboration

in the name of

"national reconciliation".

(It might be noted that

Papon was Prefect of

Police for Paris during the

Algerian conflict in the early

1960's, and that his, or for
that matter anyone else's,
responsibility in the deaths
of innumerable Algerian
protest marchers at the
hands of the police has
never been looked

into.)

Complicité de crimes contre
l'humanité.

Cour d'Assises de la Gironde 1997

Maurice Papon (ancien ministre)