Whenever I thought of France and the guillotine, I always thought of the French Revolution in the 18th century. Imagine my surprise when I saw, in a recent edition of The Economist, the obituary of the man who ended its use: Robert Badinter, who died on February 9, at the age of 95.
It turns out that the guillotine was used into the 1970's, and he got France to end the death penalty in 1981.
© 2024 Praveen Puri
