Convicted French Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon asked to be buried wearing his Legion d'Honneur medal for services to France, his lawyer said today, causing new controversy after his death.
Mr Papon, the only French Nazi official to be convicted for his role in the deportation of Jews during World War Two, died aged 96 yesterday in a private hospital after a heart operation.
"I will personally ensure that he will be accompanied in his grave by the Order of Commander of the Legion of Honour, which he received from the hands of Charles de Gaulle, for eternity," lawyer Francis Vuillemin said.
Bernard Accoyer, floor leader of the ruling UMP party in parliament, called the statement "shocking".
He said he was certain President Jacques Chirac, as grand chancellor of the order, would "make sure that on the one hand the law will be respected and that on the other nothing will sully this award, which is very emblematic for the republic".
The opposition Socialist Party said it would offend the victims and their families if Mr Papon was buried with the order.
"Such a gesture has no other aim than to offer Maurice Papon a sort of posthumous rehabilitation, or the denial of the serious and shocking facts for which he has been found guilty," the party said in a statement.
Mr Papon was not allowed to wear the medal after he was convicted in 1998 of complicity in crimes against humanity. He is due to be buried this week.
Mr Vuillemin said the state had not disavowed Mr Papon, resuming payment of his pension after 2003 and settling half of the amount he was ordered to pay to the families of his victims.
Mr Papon was a successful politician after the war who became a minister before his past caught up with him.
As a senior official in southern France, at the time unoccupied but in thrall to the Nazis, he was found to have approved the transport of more than 1,500 Jews to a transit camp on the way to Auschwitz.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but released in 2002 due to poor health, and since then had lived at home near Paris.
Michel Slitinsky (82) - the first man to start legal action against Mr Papon in 1981 - said he regretted that Mr Papon had been able to die in liberty and that other collaborating French officials had evaded justice.
"I wish there had been other Slitinskys to pursue them in other French towns," he said.
During the war, some 75,000 French Jews were sent to extermination camps; only 2,500 came back.