Maurice Papon

Maurice Papon (born September 3, 1910) is a French politician, former official of the Vichy government, which collaborated with Germany in World War II.

After the World War II Maurice Papon achieved to hide his past as a Nazi collaborator, and went on to enjoy a civil service career as the chief of Paris police, then budget minister.

Maurice Papon was chief of the police October 17, 1961 when after a peaceful march organized by the FLN, a large number of Algerian civilians, were killed in Paris by French Police. The real number of victicms remain unknow but mosts historians agree on 200 deaths.

Little by little evidences of his reponsabilty in the {{holocaust]] emerged. His trial, began in 1997 after 17 years of bitter legal wrangling. He was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity during World War II in 1998, and sentenced to 10 years of prison.

Maurice Papon was found guilty ordering the arrest and deportation of 1,560 Jews, including children and elders, between 1942 and 1944. Most of these people were send to Auschwitz. Under the Vichy collaborationist regime, he was the number two official in the Bordeaux region and supervisor of its Service for Jewish Questions.

The trial, held in 1998, was the longest in French history. It had different meaning for French people; for some, it was considered as the last chance to confront its collaborationist history in a court room. One of the main issues was to determine how much an individual should be held responsable in a chain of responsability. The prosecution recommanded that Papon be given a 20-years prison terms, although life imprisonment is usually the norm for such crimes.

Maurice Papon was finally put in jail in 1999. He was released from La Santé Prison on September 18, 2002, 3 years after he was sentenced to prison. The liberation was issued on health grounds and age. The highly criticised liberation was made possible thanks to a new French law saying inmates could be released if suffering from a fatal illness or if long-term health should be endangered by incarceration. Papon was the first Frenchman to benefit from that new law.

See also : Klaus Barbie -- Paul Touvier -- Serge Klarsfeld