Death in the service of the State in a democracy. Executions and pardons in France from 1947 to 1958
Résumé
The death penalty was largely used in France until its abolition in 1981. Both right-wing and left-wing politicians were reluctant to give up this power device, which was tremendously useful against those considered as enemies of the society and the State. From the Liberation to the end of the war in Algeria several thousand people were sentenced to death, both in metropolitan France and in the colonial empire. If we only consider the mainland, the criminal courts sentenced to death nearly 420 people; the political courts nearly 2000 people; the military courts at least 150 people. However a lot of them weren’t executed. Successive presidents were granted the right to pardon and used commutations extensively: they pardoned between 35 and 90% of the people condemned to death according to the period or the various courts. This paper is an attempt at explaining how the decisions of executions were determined and what their political meaning was. A decree of death could be a way to avenge the humiliation of Occupation, as well as a way to reassure the partisans of French Algeria or intimidate new organized crime. The President had to take into account a lot of judicial, political, and sometimes diplomatic pressures. The Constitution of 1946 gave little powers to the presidency and deciding of the life and death of so many people also contributed to building a stronger political influence. A whole bureaucracy grew in the ministry of Justice and the presidency in order to examine thousands of pleas of clemency and to give some advice to the Presidents. This paper is mostly based on the archives of these two administrations.