Maurice Papon
Cour d'Assises de la Gironde 1997
Complicité de crimes contre
l'humanité.
Maurice Papon (ancien ministre)
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.)