The government intends to promote access to the archives of the Second World War to “fight against revisionism and forgetting”. The Minister of Justice announced, Friday April 19, the opening of the archives relating to the trial of Paul Touvier, convicted in 1994 for complicity in crimes against humanity during the Occupation.
“On the occasion of the thirty years of the trial which resulted in the conviction of Paul Touvier for complicity in crimes against humanity [the ministers of culture and justice have] authorized, in advance, access to the archives of the trial (…) kept in the national archives, in the departmental archives of Rhône and the metropolis of Lyon and in the departmental archives of Yvelines,” announced the Ministry of Justice in a press release. These documents will thus be accessible fifty years before the planned date.
“Their communication will make it possible to progress in the knowledge of this historic trial, and to further promote the work of memory and truth,” believes the government. This decision comes as the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the landings and the Liberation begin.
Paul Touvier was a former leader of the Lyon militia, an official of the Vichy regime, applying the laws signed by Marshal Pétain, during the occupation of France by Nazi Germany. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1946 and 1947 for crimes committed while on duty.
He was pardoned in November 1971 by Georges Pompidou before being tried again in 1994 by the Yvelines Assize Court for complicity in crimes against humanity. On this occasion, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for complicity in crimes against humanity, notably for the massacre of Rillieux-la-Pape, where, in 1944, seven Jews were executed. He is the first Frenchman convicted of crimes against humanity.
