Wednesday, February 18, 1976. Roger Gicquel opens the “20 hours” of TF1 with these words: “France is afraid. We are the day after the arrest of Patrick Henry (1953-2017), who kidnapped and then killed 7-year-old Philippe Bertrand. And this is how the France Culture podcast opens, a remarkable reconstruction of this historic trial, since it was to allow Robert Badinter to “liberate our justice from the grip of death”, as he will write in Abolition (Fayard, 2000).
Welcome, first, the document written for the occasion by the lawyer Basile Ader and which takes up the essential elements of this trial which opens at the Assize Court of Troyes, on January 18, 1977. Applaud, then, the realization, with the cord, of Cédric Aussir, who, seizing the text, gives it so well to hear with a distribution at the height of the stake. Bastien Bouillon, crowned in February by the César for best male hope for La Nuit du 12, plays Patrick Henry; Jérôme Kircher lends his voice and talent to Robert Badinter; Jean-Pierre Malo makes a formidable president of the court, and Gilles Cohen is perfect as a general counsel.
Cédric Aussir also had the good idea to have this trial (re)played in a real court – that of Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis), in this case –, so that it resonates as accurately as possible, and has the intelligence to stick to the letter of what was said. A man’s life was at stake, and Robert Badinter knew that it was necessary to move, of course, but also to appeal to the conscience of the jurors.
Essential issue
In episode 2, we hear – and Philippe Duclos’ playing is remarkable for its precision and humanity – Abbé Clavier, chaplain at the prison of La Santé. He begins by describing “the course of an execution”: “The guillotine is erected in the courtyard of the prison. A huge black canopy is stretched like a canopy. (…) The panes of the window panes that overlook the courtyard are themselves caulked, (…) as if we didn’t want it to be seen or known. »
Later, when the president of the court challenges Robert Badinter: “We are not in Parliament to debate the death penalty”, the latter will answer: “But yes, precisely! The lawyer knows that the outcome of this trial will be complicated – the file is weak and the lies of Patrick Henry, guilty, do not help – at the same time as essential.
So he relies on science, since he chooses to have Professor Jacques Léauté, the director of the Paris Institute of Criminology, testify, who will come to say, in essence, that the death penalty is useless, and the Professor André Lwoff, who recalls why it is aberrant: “It’s an approach that is more like exorcism than justice,” said the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
“People and media pressure”
Episode 4 is particularly moving, when Robert Bocquillon (lawyer for Patrick Henry, wonderfully played by Jean-Pierre Becker) begins by saying “the awful anguish and responsibility” that weigh on his shoulders as on those of Badinter. And to add: “To be a lawyer is to prohibit hatred from being present at the hearing (…), and our duty today, it is simple, stupid, all clear, it is to tell you: “Don’t do that. Don’t do what the Advocate General has just asked you to do. You are, ladies and gentlemen, the last repositories of the immense interest that a human life can represent. (…) So, if you want it, if you resist this terrible popular and media pressure that would like him to be forced to the scaffold, then yes, the Troyes trial will go down in history!” »
After, therefore, having heard the voices of each and every one, after having heard the silence of an assize court and the outpouring of hatred that reigns outside, against Patrick Henry, we hear, at the last episode, the story that suddenly plays out when the verdict is in: life imprisonment.
This decisive blow against the death penalty does not sign the end of the fight that Robert Badinter will carry out with force, courage and conviction until the end of the penalty is voted on September 18, 1981, in the National Assembly. capital in France. That day, the weather was very nice when the Minister of Justice returned home through the Luxembourg garden, where children sailed their sailboats on the basin. He noted, however, on the back cover of L’Abolition: “However, considering the executions carried out in the United States, China, Iran and many other countries, the fight against the death penalty is far from over. . For this too, we must hear – and here so well – this trial.
