Maurice Papon:In 1981, Maurice Papon, who has died aged 96, was the minister for the budget in the administration of prime minister Raymond Barre when his role in the deportation of French Jews during the second World War was uncovered.
Eventually brought to trial, he was convicted in 1998 of complicity in crimes against humanity and sentenced to 10 years in prison for ordering the arrest and deportation of 1,690 Jews, including 223 children, from the Bordeaux region to the Nazi death camps in Germany. However, he served less than four years of his sentence, and was released in September 2002 on grounds of ill health.
None of this would have been known if it had not been for the research of Michel Bergès, a young French historian working in the departmental archives of the Gironde. He was looking for documents concerning relations between local wine merchants and the Germans during the occupation. By chance he came across the archives of the department of Jewish affairs, which had been attached to the préfecture of Bordeaux at the time of Vichy, the puppet government set up by the Nazis. In these forgotten papers he found evidence concerning the forced deportation of Jews from Bordeaux to the transit camp at Drancy, near Paris (from where they were sent to the death camps), during the years 1942 to 1944.
Certain of these documents bore the signature of Maurice Papon, then secretary general of the Bordeaux préfecture. Bergès got in touch with Michel Slitinsky, a former member of the resistance, whose family had been deported because they were Jewish. Slitinsky contacted the weekly paper Le Canard Enchainé, which published some of the relevant documents in May 1981, during the presidential elections which saw victory for François Mitterrand. Papon now became known to a wider public as he was accused of crimes against humanity.
Papon could look back on a remarkably successful career. Born in Gretz-Armainvilliers, in Seine-et-Marne, he was the son of a prosperous lawyer father, who had moved into business. An education in the right Paris lycées (Montaigne and Louis-le-Grand) followed, and then a law degree at the Sorbonne. His first appointment in government service came in 1931 through his father's friend, Jacques Dumesnil, then minister for air in the government of Pierre Laval.
Papon had the necessary ability to adapt himself to different political circumstances. When, in 1936, the Popular Front government of Léon Blum came to power, Papon discovered that he was a socialist, and used his spare time to edit a left-wing publication, Le Jacobin. He also possessed good luck. Called up in 1939, he spent the summer of 1940 in the comparative calm of Syria. Returning to France in October 1940 he found that his friend and patron, Maurice Sabatier, was occupying an important post in the ministry of the interior and he was appointed to work under his direction.
Now, in Vichy, he became an enthusiast for Marshal Pétain's national revolution. This enthusiasm, together with undoubted administrative ability, earned him five promotions in 18 months. In June 1942 Sabatier was appointed préfect in Bordeaux, and Papon was made secretary general to the préfecture.
His arrival in Bordeaux coincided with the intensification of the Holocaust by the Germans. Between July 1942 and May 1944, 10 trains left Bordeaux, taking more than 1,600 Jews (including children) en route for Auschwitz. The preceding round-ups and the organisation of the journeys had involved the full participation of the French authorities, and Papon was praised by both his French superiors and by the Germans. But in 1943 he was criticised by the Germans for being pro-American, and in the same year he helped to hide a Jewish member of the resistance, Roger-Samuel Bloch.
With the liberation of France in 1944, Gaston Cusin was appointed to Bordeaux as commissaire de la République. Sabatier was dismissed, but Cusin kept Papon, and made him préfect of the Landes. There was a certain haste in these procedures as there was fear of a communist takeover. Papon remained in Bordeaux until October 1945, when he was once more appointed to the ministry of the interior, where he again showed his political adaptability by becoming enthusiastic for the socialists. He was chef du cabinet to Jean Biondi, undersecretary at the ministry of the interior and, significantly, a former member of the resistance.
Various promotions followed. He was préfect in Corsica (1947-49), in Constantine, eastern Algeria (1949-51), secretary general to the préfecture of police in Paris (1951-54), secretary general to the French protectorate of Morocco (1954-55), and once again préfect in Constantine, with the added mission of being inspector of the administration in eastern Algeria (1956-58). Both in Morocco and in Algeria his actions were firmly pro-French and he acted vigorously against the nationalists. Two months before the collapse of the Fourth Republic, he was appointed préfect of police in Paris, an appointment that was confirmed when Gen de Gaulle came to power in 1958.
As préfect of police, Papon had to deal with a difficult situation. Algerian nationalists were active and the French police were under constant threat. As secret negotiations between the French government and the leaders of the war of independence in Algeria began, representatives of the French settlers began their own terrorist activity. Papon administered the police independently of the minister of the interior and made no secret of his desire to avenge French police who had been killed. Two incidents stand out. On October 17th, 1961, an illegal Algerian nationalist demonstration was crushed with great ferocity. It was claimed that some hundreds of Algerians were killed. Then, on February 8th, 1962, another demonstration was dispersed and nine Algerians were killed at the entrance to the Métro station Charonne.
It was the mysterious kidnapping and disappearance of the Moroccan nationalist leader, Ben Barka, who was arrested by the French police in the centre of Paris on October 30th, 1965, which cast a most unflattering light on the organisation of the police in Paris. Yet it was not until December 21st, 1966, that Papon was replaced.
It appeared Papon's career was over. But it was only changing. In January 1967 he was appointed president of aircraft firm Sud-Aviation, and in June 1968 he was elected deputy for the Cher department as a Gaullist. At first he navigated between Gaullism and Giscardism, then, after the government headed by Barre had narrowly won the legislative elections of 1978, he was made minister for the budget. This was a political appointment: president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing saw in Papon a Gaullist who was prepared to rally to his support.
At this time there was nothing to suggest that Papon was anything but a successful civil servant. He had the normal honours that come from a grateful republic, such as the legion of honour; in addition, he was seen as a Gaullist, who had been awarded the Cross of the Resistance Fighter. Then, on May 6th, 1981, the Canard Enchainé published its article denouncing him. On May 10th, Mitterrand was elected president. Shortly afterwards, the assembly was dissolved; Papon announced that he would not be a candidate in the elections.
At this point, a number of families in the Bordeaux region, whose relatives had been deported and who had died in Auschwitz and other camps, brought legal actions against Papon, claiming that he was guilty of crimes against humanity during the years 1942 to 1944, a crime which was not subject to any statute of limitations.
Papon's defence was simple. As an official he was obliged to obey orders. Had he not done so then the Germans would simply have taken over and destroyed the identity of the Vichy state that was governing France. More importantly, from 1943 onwards he had been a member of the French resistance, saving the lives of many Jews whose names he had removed from the lists of those who were to be deported.
He put the arguments to a jury of honour in 1981, composed of patriotic and distinguished French men and women. They concluded that he was not guilty of crimes of treason as they accepted that he had been a member of the resistance. But they thought that he should have resigned his position in the préfecture.
In January 1983, Papon was officially charged with crimes against humanity. The slowness of the French legal machine was increased by a certain reluctance to prosecute (which was aided by Mitterrand). Finally, in September 1996, some 15 years after the original accusation, the appeal court in Bordeaux ordered that Papon should be tried in the assize court for crimes against humanity.
The trial opened on October 6th, 1997. Papon had undergone serious heart surgery, and it was twice suspended. Papon always claimed that he was the victim of a political trial that had caused him great suffering and the death of his wife, who died during the trial. Nevertheless, on April 2nd, 1998, after the longest post-war trial, Maurice Papon was found guilty of the arrest and deportation of French Jews during the years 1942-1944. He immediately lodged an appeal, and was allowed to return to his home in the Seine-et-Marne department. By French law he was obliged to report to prison the night before his appeal, but Papon refused to do this and disappeared. He was quickly found to be hiding in Switzerland and jailed on October 22nd, 1999. In prison, his health deteriorated and his early release cited a new law for aged prisoners.
He is survived by his three children.
Maurice Papon: born September 3rd, 1910; died February 17th, 2007