French swing against guillotine

Press, 16 June 1979, Page 9

French swing against guillotine

iNZPA Paris]! I A French Parliamentary;! panel has voted over-!i iwhelmingly to recommend i (abolition of I he death pen-i laity at the stall, of France's I ’first legislative debate on it (since 1908. • The National Assembly : (committee on law voted 13 to two to substitute life im-h prisonment for capital punishment, administered in] ; France by the guillotine; (since its introduction during(i the French Revolution. The vote coincided with i an Assize Court’s sentencing ' to death a two-time con- ' victed murderer, who thus became the only person now awaiting execution in I France — the only European Community country to retain capital punishment. The committee’s vote set : the stage for a special Parliamentary debate promised bx (he Minister of Justice ;

(Mr Alain Peyrefttte), who had pledged to hold an addi tionat session during next month’s summer recess if necessary. The guillotine was used for the last time to execute a child-killer in September, 1977. There have been only seven executions since 1968, Public opinion polls said that 67 per cent of the French supported the death penalty in 1977, but approval had dropped to 43 per cent by last February. In ordering the latest death sentence, the Assize] Court in the south-central Tarn department drew cheers after the trial of a convicted killer, Norbert Garceau, aged 53. . -Garceau, found guilty of strangling a 28-year-old woman colleague, had been freed in 1972 from prison where he had been serving a life term for strangling a 15-year-old girl.