Papon: The man and his life

Maurice Papon, a former official of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime who later rose to be a French cabinet minister, was arrogant and defiant and never showed the slightest remorse for his wartime behavior.

Maurice Papon, a former official of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime who later rose to be a French cabinet minister, was arrogant and defiant and never showed the slightest remorse for his wartime behavior.

The charges against Papon stem from the period in World War II, when he was prefect for the Gironde region of south-western France during the Vichy regime. He was later to be convicted of deporting 1,590 Jews to Nazi death camps.

But he managed to escape the purging of collaborators after the war and went on to a distinguished career at regional and national level.

After the war, he held posts in Corsica, Algeria and Morocco before becoming Paris police chief in 1958, a post he held for eight years.

Papon became a deputy in the National Assembly in 1968 and was re-elected twice. He moved on to take on the post of budget minister in the Gaullist government between 1978 and 1981.

He even won France’s highest accolade, the Légion D’honneur, for his services to the country.

But it was in 1981 that the first evidence was produced against him. Civil plaintiffs spent years trying to force French authorities to bring him to trial.

Justice caught up with him when at the age of 87, Papon was convicted in 1998 by a court in Bordeaux of crimes against humanity.

From Staff and Wire reports.