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Maurice Papon (September 3, 1910 – February 17, 2007) was a French civil servant, known for his collaboration with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, later reconverted as a Gaullist politician. He is best known as prefect of police of Paris during the 1950s and 1960s, treasurer of the Gaullist Party and member of the French government under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

During the Second World War he was secretary general for police of the Prefecture of Bordeaux. Papon participated in the repression in Algeria during the Algerian War (1954-62) as prefect of the Constantinois department. He was named chief of the Paris police in 1958. There, he ordered on October 17, 1961 the severe repression of a peaceful pro-FLN demonstration against the curfew which he had imposed. The Paris massacre of 1961 left between 70 and 200 dead.

Personally awarded the Legion of Honour by President Charles de Gaulle in 1961, he was stripped of all his decorations after his 1998 condemnation for crimes against humanity. Papon was also in charge during the February 1962 massacre at the Charonne metro station, which took place during an anti-OAS demonstration organized by the Communist Party (PCF). Forced to quit his functions after the "disappearance" of Moroccan dissident Mehdi Ben Barka, leader of the Tricontinental Conference, in 1965, he became, supported by Charles de Gaulle, director of Sud Aviation company, which created the first Concorde plane.

After May 1968, he became Minister of the Budget under prime minister Raymond Barre and president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In 1981, emergence of details about his past under Vichy led to his trial and, after a very long investigation, conviction for crimes against humanity in 1997 to 1998. Le Canard enchaîné newspaper published on May 6, 1981 documents signed by Papon which show his responsibility in the deportation of 1,690 Jews of Bordeaux to Drancy internment camp from 1942 to 1944, last stop before Auschwitz and other extermination camps ^[1] Released before the term of his ten-years sentence on grounds of health, he died on February 17, 2007, having served less than three years of his sentence.

Contents 1 Early years 2 World War II 3 Papon under the Fourth Republic (1945-1958) 4 Prefect of Paris (1958-1967) 5 From 1967 to 1981: from CEO of Sud Aviation to Budget Minister 6 The trial of Papon (1981-1998) 7 Papon's release in 2002 under health reasons 8 Papon's funerals: the last controversy 9 References 10 Quotes 11 See also 12 External links

Papon was born in the Seine-et-Marne region of northern France. The son of a solicitor-turned-industrialist, he studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, along with Georges Pompidou (later President of France) and René Brouillet (who was part of Charles de Gaulle's cabinet after the war). Papon then entered Sciences-Po and studied law, psychology and sociology. His father became mayor of Gretz when Papon was nine years-old, and retained that function until 1937. He was also general counsellor (conseiller général) of Tournan-en-Brie and president of the council of this canton in 1937.

After entering public service at the age of twenty, the ambitious and intelligent Papon was quickly promoted. During the Second Cartel des gauches, in February 1931, he worked in the cabinet of the Minister of Air, the Radical-Socialist and freemason Jean-Louis Dumesnil ^[2]. He was then named in the Ministry of Interior, in July 1935, before becoming chief of staff of the deputy director of departmental and communal affairs in January 1936, under the orders of Maurice Sabatier. In June 1936, during the Popular Front government, he was attached to the cabinet of Radical-Socialist François de Tessan, under-state secretary to the presidency of the Council and a friend of his father. Papon became a member of the Ligue d'action universitaire républicaine et socialiste, in which Pierre Mendès France was also part of, and also took membership in the Radical-Socialist youth organization ^[3].

He followed François de Tessan, who became under Camille Chautemps's government under-state secretary to Foreign Affairs. In March 1938, he became the parliamentary attachee of de Tessan.

Mobilized on August 26, 1939 in the 2nd colonial infantry regiment, he was sent to Tripoli and assumed responsibilities for the secret services in Ras-el-Aïn ^[2].

Repatriated in November 1940 from Syria, he chose to serve Vichy. His two mentors, senator Jean-Louis Dumesnil and Maurice Sabatier voted on July 10, 1940 to grant extraordinary powers to Philippe Pétain. Papon was then named by Vichy vice-chief of bureau to the central administration of the Ministry of Interior, before being named in February 1941 vice-prefect, 1st class. The next month, he became Maurice Sabatier's general secretary, and general secretary of the administration for the Interior Minister. While Papon chose Vichy, 94 civil servants were revoked at the end of the spring of 1941, 104 pensioned off and 79 muted: as Le Monde put it, "neutrality is no longer an option" ^[2]. In May 1942, his chief Sabatier was named prefect of Aquitaine by Pierre Laval, head of the Vichy government, and Papon became general secretary of the prefecture of Gironde, in charge of Jewish Affairs ^[4]. Maurice Sabatier, who died in 1989, was found culpable for his role during Vichy in 1988, five years after his secretary general ^[5]

Papon later claimed he had Gaullist tendencies during the war. A confidential report from the Nazis show that in April 1943, he qualified himself as "Collaborationist", during "personal or official conversations." Another document of July 1943 called him a "good negotiator" ^[2]. During World War II, Papon served as a senior police official in the Vichy regime. He was the number two official in the Bordeaux region (secretary general of the prefecture of Gironde) and supervisor of its Service for Jewish Questions. With authority over Jewish affairs, Papon regularly collaborated with Nazi Germany's SS Corps, responsible for the extermination of Jews. Under his command, approximately 1,560 Jewish men, women and children were deported. The majority were sent directly to the camp of Mérignac, from which they rejoined Drancy internment camp, at the outskirts of Paris, and finally Auschwitz or similar concentration camps. From July 1942 to August 1944, twelve trains left Bordeaux for Drancy; approximatively 1,600 Jews, including 130 children of less than thirteen years, were then deported ^[2].Few survived. Papon implemented the anti-Semitic laws voted by the Vichy government. In July 1942, a first report by him show that he "dejudaised" 204 companies, sold 64 land-properties owned by Jewish people and 493 others were "in the course of dejudaisation" ^[2].

By mid-1944, when it was clear that the war was turning against the Germans, Papon began to take care of the future, meeting once Gaston Cusin, a civil servant engaged in the Resistance.

Further information: French Fourth Republic

Although he was put into question by some Resistants after the war, Papon managed to escape being judged by the Comité départemental de Libération (CDL) of Bordeaux for his role during Vichy, in particular because he had been protected by Gaston Cusin ^[2]. He also presented a certificate proving that he had taken part in the Resistance, although its authenticity was late rejected ^[3]. The CDL were in charge of the epuration. The Resistance in Bordeaux was very weak at the Liberation, and lacked members after internal dissensions divided it and because of German repression. Maurice Sabatier, Papon's mentor and chief, who stands accused by the CDL of having "boasted" that his prefecture was one of the most efficient concerning the "percentage" of "deportations", was only suspended for several months from his functions, retaining half of his salary, before being awarded the Legion of Honour in 1948 ^[2].

Papon hereafter became chief of staff of the commissaire de la République, a high civil servant status which replaced Vichy's prefects ^[3]. In other words, he retained exactly the same functions that he had exerced during the war. This, despite that Charles de Gaulle "perfectly knew his past," according to Olivier Guichard ^[6]" De Gaulle had received him personally after the liberation of Bordeaux, in September 1944 ^[2].

Papon was first named prefect of the Landes department in August 1944, and then chief of staff of the commissaire of the Republic of Aquitaine Gaston Cusin. When Cusin left Bordeaux, his successor, Jacques Soustelle, a Gaullist Resistant, confirmed Papon into his functions. A few months later, Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury also confirmed him there. Papon then became vice-director of Algeria at the Minister of Interior in October 1945. A year later, he became secretary of state to the Ministry of Interior Jean Biondi (SFIO)'s chief of staff.

Eric Roussel wrote that in the eyes of General de Gaulle, "the authority of the state is so sacred, the danger constituted by the communists so intolerable, that he is disposed to accept without too much problems of conscience men who may have, for a fairly long time, worked for the account of Vichy." ^[6] He was then named prefect of Corsica in January 1947 by Léon Blum's government, and in October 1949 of Constantine in Algeria by Radical Henri Queuille's government (with SFIO member Jules Moch at the Interior). He went to Morocco in 1954 as general secretary of the protectorate, and there helped crush the Moroccan nationalists. He then returned to Constantine in 1956 during the Algerian War (1954-62), where he actively participated in the repression and the use of torture against the civilian population ^[7]

In March 1958, Papon was named chief of the Paris police (préfet de police) by Félix Gaillard (Radical)'s government. As prefect of police, he had an important role in the May 13, 1958 crisis which brought de Gaulle to power and lead to the founding, in complex circumstances, of the Fifth Republic. He took part in the Gaullist confidential meetings which assured the instrumentalization of the crisis, preparing de Gaulle's nomination as President of the Council, which granted him extraordinary powers ^[8]. On July 3, 1958, he managed to get what, according to Le Monde, he could "never have dreamed of": a "Carte d'Ancien Combattant de la Resistance" ^[2]. On July 12, 1961, president Charles de Gaulle bestowed on him the French Legion of Honour for service to the state ^[1].

He oversaw the repression during the Paris massacre of 1961. On October 17, 1961, after a peaceful march organized by the Algerian National Liberation Front which contravened a curfew imposed by Papon. 11,000 persons were arrested by the police, simply because of their appearance^[9]. They were mostly people from the Maghreb, but also included Spanish, Portuguese and Italians. These detainees were sent, in a tragic echo of the Vichy regime, on RATP bus to the Parc des Expositions, the Winter Velodrome, and other such centers which had been used under Vichy as internment centers. A massacre occurred in the courtyards of the Prefecture of Police, while the detainees were held without specific charges. In the following days at the Parc des Expositions, detainees were subject to inhumane treatments. Arrests continued during all the month of October 1961. Meanwhile bodies were found floating in the Seine River. The police had thrown some Algerians into the Seine, using the same tactics as General Massu and Colonel Bigeard during the 1957 Battle of Algiers, whose infamous death flights, were nicknamed at the time "Crevettes Bigeard" ("Bigeard's Shrimps").

Up to 200 people were killed during these events, according to the leading historian about this period, Jean-Luc Einaudi ^[9]. However some archives have been destroyed, while others remain classified, so the exact number of the dead remains unknown. At the time, the French government, headed by Charles de Gaulle with Roger Frey as Interior Minister, only admitted 2 dead. A government inquiry in 1999 concluded 48 drownings on the one night and 142 similar deaths of Algerians in the weeks before and after, 110 of whom were found in the Seine; it also concluded the true toll was almost certainly higher. According to Le Monde, Papon "organized the silence". It wasn't until the 1990s until historians began to speak out. ^[2]. The French government reluctantly recognized 48 deaths, although the Paris Archives consulted by historian David Assouline had registered 70 persons dead. Papon never acknowledged any responsibility for this massacre.

Papon was also in charge during the February 8, 1962 demonstration against the OAS pro-"French Algeria" terrorist group. Organized by the French Communist Party (PCF), it had been prohibited by the state. Nine members of the CGT trade union, most of them communists, were killed at Charonne métro station by the police forces, directed by the same Maurice Papon under the same government, with Roger Frey as Minister of Interior, Michel Debré as Prime minister and Charles de Gaulle as president, who did all they could to "dissimulate the scale of the 17 October crime" (Jean-Luc Einaudi ^[9]). The funerals on 13 February 1962 of the nine persons killed (among them, Fanny Dewerpe) were attended by hundreds of thousands of people.^[10][11][12]

But Papon was forced to leave his functions after the kidnapping, in Paris, of Mehdi Ben Barka, Moroccan dissident and leader of the Tricontinental Conference, in October 1965. Two French police agents, as well as French secret agents, participated in this "disappearance" orchestrated at the minimum by Moroccan Interior Minister Mohamed Oufkir, which remains to this day a mysterious case involving various international intelligence agencies (Ben Barka was preparing a meeting the next year in La Havana aiming to gather all anti-colonialist parties from all continents, independent of any states whatsoever). De Gaulle was forced to ask Papon to resign at the start of 1967 ^[2].

De Gaulle first thought up a diplomatic mission for him, before helping him become president of the company Sud Aviation (1967-68). The firm, which later merged into Aérospatiale, built the first Concorde plane in 1969. During May 1968, he managed to write: "Is it the return of the Occupation? The young German anarchist Cohn-Bendit is freely arranging the riots." ^[13] The new chief of the Paris police managed to take care of the situation without one single death.

Papon was elected deputy of Cher as candidate of the UDR Gaullist Party in May 1968. He was re-elected in 1973 and in 1978 (as member of the RPR neo-Gaullist party). He was also elected mayor of Saint-Amand-Montrond in 1971 and re-elected in 1977.

Papon was also director of the Verreries mécaniques champenoises, a glass art firm in Reims ^[14]. In the evening of 4 to 5 June 1977, a commando shot on workers on strike, killing CGT trade-unionist Pierre Maître and severely injuring two others. Four of the five members of the commando, adherents to the CFT "yellow trade-union" were arrested by the police.

From 1968 to 1971, Papon was treasurer of the UDR Gaullist Party. He became President of the Commission of the Finances of the National Assembly in 1972 and was the deputy presenting the budget (rapporteur général du budget) from 1973 to 1978. He then served as Budget Minister under Prime Minister Raymond Barre and President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing from 1978 to 1981, before finishing his mayoral mandate in 1983 and renouncing political activity.

Evidence of his responsibility in the Holocaust emerged in 1981, and throughout the 1980s he fought a string of legal battles.

Le Canard enchaîné newspaper published on May 6, 1981, an article titled "Papon, aide de camps. Quand un ministre de Giscard faisait déporter des juifs," between the two turns of the presidential election opposing Socialist candidate François Mitterrand to the right-wing candidate Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In this article, the newspaper showed documents signed by Papon which demonstrated his responsibility in the deportation of 1,690 Jews of Bordeaux to Drancy from 1942 to 1944 ^[1] These documents had been provided to the satirical newspaper by one of the survivors of Papon's raid, Michel Slitinsky, in the spring of 1981. He himself had received them from historian Michel Bergé, who had discovered them in February 1981 in the departmental archives ^[5].

Famous Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld were also at the origins of his trial, and Serge and Arno Klarsfeld represented the family of the victims. Other important Collaborators, such as René Bousquet, head of the French police under Vichy, have not been judged (Bousquet was assassinated in 1993, and his adjoint, Jean Leguay, died in 1989 after ten years of indictment for crimes against humanity for his role in the July 1942 Vel'd'hiv raid, for which President Jacques Chirac recognized in 1995 the responsibility of the French state). In memoirs that Papon had projected to write before his death, he criticized this official recognition by Chirac of the involvement of the French state in the put to practice of the Holocaust ^[15].

Charges of crimes against humanity, complicity of assassination and abuse of authority were first brought against Papon in January 1983. Three months later, Papon deposed, against the families of the victims, a suit for defamation, which he lost ^[3]. The investigation, very slow, was canceled in 1987 because of legal technicalities (a mistake by the investigating magistrate). New charges were laid in 1988, in October 1990, and in June 1992 ^[3]. The investigation was finished in July 1995. In December 1995, he was sent to the Cour d'Assises, accused of being responsible for organizing four deportation trains. He was finally accused of having organized eight trains in total.

Papon finally went to trial on 8 October 1997, after fourteen years of bitter legal wrangling. The trial went on to be the longest in French history, finishing on 2 April 1998.

The trial had different meanings for different French people; for some it was the last chance to confront their collaborationist history in a court room. Because of his arrogance, his contempt and his refusal to express regrets or remorse during and since the lawsuit, Papon drew contempt from many.

Papon was accused of ordering the arrest and deportation of 1,560 Jews, including children and the elderly, between 1942 and 1944. As during Adolf Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem thirty years before, one of the issues of the trial was to determine to what extent an individual should be held responsible in a chain of responsibility. But the most important issue regarded France's responsibility towards the realisation of the Holocaust, insofar as the Vichy regime had willfully collaborated with Nazi Germany.

Papon's lawyers argued that he was merely a mid-level official, not the person making decisions about whom to deport. His lawyers even argued that he in fact did the most good he could given the circumstances, ensuring that those deported were treated well while in his custody. However, the prosecution argued that the defence of following orders was not sufficient, and that Papon bore at least some of the responsibility for the deportations. Furthermore, calling on assistance from the best historians of the period, they dismantled his arguments according to which he had in fact tried to "humanize" the conditions of deportations of the Jews. Thus, while Papon claimed that he had done the best he could to grant humane conditions of transport to the camp of Mérignac, historians show that in fact, his concerns were motivated by efficiency. Although Papon claimed that he had used ordinary trains, and not livestock trains as used by the SNCF in a lot of other transfers, this was not motivated by any ethical concern, but to prevent any demonstration of sympathy towards the Jews from the local population.

Many leading historians of the period were called in as "experts" during the trial, including Jean-Pierre Azéma, André Kaspi, Marc-Olivier Baruch, Henry Rousso, Denis Peschanski, Maurice Rajsfus, René Rémond, Jacques Delarue, Henri Amouroux, Michel Bergès, as well as US historian Robert Paxton and Swiss historian Philippe Burin ^[5]. On 31 October 1997, Robert Paxton was heard by the court during three and a half hours. The defendant party tried to exclude him from the process, claiming that the international and national context was irrelevant; a pretext immediately excluded by the magistrate, on the grounds that one can not pretend such a thing when he is charged of crimes against humanity. As a specialist of the history of Vichy, and foreign to internal politics of France, Paxton gave a distant and objective account, which particularly dismissed the "preconceived ideas" according to which Vichy had "hoped to protect French Jews" by handing out to the Germans "foreign Jews." "From the start, at the summit, it was known that their departure [of the French Jews] was unavoidable." He recalled that "Italians had protected the Jews. And the French authorities complained about it to the Germans." Paxton therefore concluded that "The French state, himself, has participated to the politics of extermination of the Jews." ^[16]

In his 36-minute final speech to the jury, Papon rarely evoked the victims of the Holocaust, but instead portrayed himself as a victim; of "the saddest chapter in French legal history." He even denounced a "Moscow Trial," going so far as to compare his status to Alfred Dreyfus ^[5].

Having proved that Papon had organized eight "death trains", the plaintiffs' lawyers recommended that he be given a 20-year prison term, as opposed to the sentence of life imprisonment, which is usually the norm for such crimes. Papon was convicted in 1998 and finally given a 10-year prison term, which was criticized by some for being too short. His lawyers filed an appeal before the Court of Cassation. However, Papon had fled to Switzerland under an assumed name, remaining free for 18 months in violation of French law which requires one report to prison before the beginning of the appeal hearing. His appeal was automatically denied by the Court because of this. France issued an international arrest warrant, and he was caught by Swiss police ten days later. Switzerland extradited him and Papon was sent to the prison of La Santé in Paris on October 22, 1999. Papon was also stripped of all his decorations; under French law, people convicted of severe crimes cannot be members of the Legion of Honour.

He applied for release on the grounds of poor health in March 2000, but President Jacques Chirac denied the petition three times. He continued to fight legal battles while in prison, taking his denied appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, where he argued the French court's denial of his appeal on a technicality (rather than on the merits of the case) constituted a violation of his right to appeal his conviction. The Court agreed in July 2002, admonishing the Court of Cassation and awarding Papon FF429,192 (approx. €65,400) in legal costs, but no damages.

However, Papon's lawyers had meanwhile been pursuing a separate appeal in France, petitioning for his release under the terms of a March 2002 law, issued by Bernard Kouchner, which provided for the release of ill and elderly prisoners to receive outside medical care. His doctors affirmed that Papon, by this time 92 years old, was essentially incapacitated, so he became the second person released under the terms of the law, leaving jail on September 18, 2002, less than 3 years into his sentence. Former Justice Minister Robert Badinter gave him an unattended support,prompting indignation from the family of the victims and lawyers Arno and Serge Klarsfeld ^[17]

This angered the relatives of Papon's victims, human rights NGOs and, on a global scale, a lot of people, in particular in the left-wing, quick to point out that many others detainees did not benefit from that law (including detainees in terminal stages of AIDS, or Nathalie Ménigon, a member of Action Directe still imprisonned as of 2007, despite suffering of partial hemiplegia, etc.) The Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League) criticized the inequality before the law, under which Papon was freed while other prisoners did not have this luck ^[18].

Israeli officials also expressed dismay, including Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner – a former ambassador to France – saying he was personally "stunned and outraged" by the release of Papon. Jewish groups opposed his release because they said he showed no remorse for his actions. "It's a difficult decision for us Israelis to accept given the abominable crimes of which Papon was convicted," Israeli President Moshe Katzav said in 2002.

On November 18, 1999, Maurice Papon was stripped of the Legion of Honour, following from his conviction.^[19] In March 2004, the chancery of the Legion of Honour accused Papon of wearing his decoration (which he was stripped of after his conviction) illegally while being photographed for a press interview for Le Point. He was tried and fined €2,500.

In February 2007, Papon underwent what was thought to be successful heart surgery to correct problems with congestive heart failure, but died a few days later on February 17 at the age of 96 ^[20].

His attorney, Francis Vuillemin, declared intentions of having Papon buried with insignias of Commander of the Legion of Honour. This triggered indignation from the whole political class, except Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front ^[18]. Bernard Accoyer, head of the UMP group in the French National Assembly, suggested that, as high chancellor of the Order of the Legion of Honour, President Jacques Chirac might personally intervene to prevent this, but Papon was eventually buried with the insignia on the 21st February 2007 ^{[21] [22][23]}. A son of one of Papon's victims sadly observed that "Beside being a remorseless dead man, he also want to remain a revancheful dead." ^[18]

In a 36-minute final speech to the French war crimes jury:

• "I say, be careful that France does not get hurt by this verdict outside our borders."
• "It would be a humiliation for our nation to be linked with Nazi Germany in its responsibility for Jewish genocide."
• "France should not be accused of this horror just because it took place on her soil."
• "Sometimes I ask myself, why me?"
• "What should one have done?"
• "[The prosecution has distorted the truth and] cast aside the law to obey higher orders."
• "This is what is called a political trial."
• "Staying in one's post sometimes takes more courage than resigning."
• "I am either guilty or innocent! It's all or nothing."

• Klaus Barbie
• Paul Touvier
• Serge Klarsfeld
• 1961 Paris Massacre

• Maurice Papon, Vichy and Algeria, dissertation by Stephanie Hare-Cuming, London School of Economics (English)
• Video of the opening of the Papon trial, on the INA archive website
• TRIAL : Maurice Papon's trial
• Decision by the chancellor of the Legion of Honour acknowledging Papon's condemnation and the stripping of his decoration (French)