The shadow of Robert Badinter hung over Bordeaux, on Friday, February 9. President Emmanuel Macron had just arrived in the city when news broke of the death of the 95-year-old former justice minister, the artisan of the abolition of the death penalty. Macron was scheduled to visit a police station, then attend the swearing-in ceremony of the largest-ever class at Brodeaux's school for magistrates. The day was meant to illustrate the authority and firmness that the president wants to embody, to defend, in his words, "the right to a quiet life." But first, he expressed the nation's sorrow for a "great man" whom the country had just lost.

Once or twice a year, Macron had lunch face-to-face with Badinter, who was also a former president of the Constitutional Council. From the portrait room of the presidential palace, Macron, who accelerated the disappearance of the old political world, liked to hear stories from the nonagenarian who had lived through World War II, Nazism, and the effervescence provoked by the election of a left-wing president, François Mitterrand, in 1981.

According to one of his advisers, Macron had a relationship of "admiration" and "affection" with this figure from the Mitterrand-era left. Badinter "was also, for me, I must say, a wise man (...) who always shed light on the most delicate decisions," Macron told journalists, calling Badinter a "conscience." There will be a national tribute, the president said, to be organized in conjunction with Badinter's family. The late justice minister could also be inducted into the Pantheon, but "these things take time," Macron added.

The death of the man who put an end to the guillotine, which was still the method of execution in Frane until the abolition of the death penalty, "is a singular event," acknowledged Macron, who would like to see himself following in the great man's footsteps. "Like Robert Badinter," he said on Friday, "I'm also in favor of major principles: just look at what's going to happen with the laws on abortion and the end of life [assistance in dying]."

For the time being, however, "justice is in mourning," said the top judge of the Bordeaux court appeals, ahead of a minute's silence. "This day, which you will remember for the rest of your lives, will be forever marked by the imprint of this lawyer of character and profession, who fought his whole life for the Enlightenment, for justice, for France, which for him were three names for his ideal," Macron said at the ceremony.

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