Maurice Papon

French policeman, politician, and Axis collaborator (1910–2007)

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Maurice Papon (French: [mɔʁis papɔ̃, moʁ-]; 3 September 1910 – 17 February 2007) was a French civil servant, mass murderer and Nazi collaborator who was convicted of crimes against humanity committed during the occupation of France. Papon led the police in major prefectures from the 1930s to the 1960s, before he became a Gaullist politician. When he was secretary general for the police in Bordeaux during World War II, he participated in the deportation of more than 1,600 Jews. He is also known for his activities in the Algerian War (1954–1962), during which he tortured insurgent prisoners as prefect of the Constantinois department, and ordered, as prefect of the Paris police, the 1961 massacre of pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) demonstrators for violating a curfew that he had "advised".

In 1961, Maurice Papon was personally awarded the Legion of Honour by French President Charles de Gaulle, whose government had been struggling with the FLN insurgency. Papon also commanded the Paris police in the Charonne subway massacre and the 1961 Paris massacre, during which between 200 and 300 Algerian demonstrators were deliberately killed by the Paris police. Forced to resign in 1967 after the suspicious forced disappearance of the Moroccan Marxist Mehdi Ben Barka, with de Gaulle's support he was named as president of Sud Aviation, the company which co-developed Concorde.

After May 1968, Papon was elected as a member of the French National Assembly and served several terms. From 1978 to 1981, he served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Raymond Barre under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Between the two rounds of the May 1981 presidential election, where Giscard d'Estaing was running for a second term, details about Papon's past were leaked in Le Canard enchaîné newspaper. Documents signed by Papon were made public that showed his responsibility in the deportation of 1,690 Bordeaux Jews to Drancy internment camp from 1942–44. After a long investigation and protracted legal wranglings, he was eventually tried.

In 1998, Papon was convicted of crimes against humanity. He was released from prison early, in 2002, for ill health. He died in 2007.

Early life and education

Papon was born in Gretz-Armainvilliers, Seine-et-Marne, the son of a solicitor who became an industrialist. In 1919, when Papon was nine years old, his father was elected mayor in the commune and held that office until 1937. His father was also local representative (conseiller général) of Tournan-en-Brie and president of the canton's council in 1937.

Papon studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, in Paris. Fellow students at the elite school were Georges Pompidou, later President of France, and René Brouillet, who would join Charles de Gaulle's cabinet after the war. Papon entered Sciences-Po, the specialty university for future civil servants and politicians, and he studied law, psychology and sociology.

Early career

After entering public service at the age of 20, Papon was quickly promoted. During the second Cartel des gauches, in February 1931, he worked in the cabinet of the Minister of Air, Jean-Louis Dumesnil. He was named in the Ministry of Interior in July 1935 before he became chief of staff of the deputy director of departmental and communal affairs, in January 1936, under Maurice Sabatier.

In June 1936, during the Popular Front government, he was attached to the cabinet of Radical-Socialist François de Tessan, the vice-state secretary to the presidency of the council as well as a friend of his father. He became a member of the Ligue d'action universitaire républicaine et socialiste, a Radical-Socialist youth group; Pierre Mendès France was also a member.

World War II

Mobilised on 26 August 1939 in the 2nd colonial infantry regiment, Papon was sent to Tripoli, French Lebanon. He was assigned to direct the French secret services in Ras-el-Aïn, in the north of French Syria. Following the fall of France, he was demobilized and returned to France by October 1940. Papon opted to serve the Vichy government, his mentors, Jean-Louis Dumesnil and Maurice Sabatier, having voted on 10 July 1940 to grant all power to Philippe Pétain.

Papon was appointed as the vice-chief of bureau to the central administration of the Ministry of Interior, before he was named, in February 1941, as vice-prefect, 1st class. The next month, he became Maurice Sabatier's general secretary and general secretary of the administration for the Interior Minister. While Papon chose Vichy, 94 civil servants were dismissed at the end of the spring of 1941, 104 pensioned off and 79 moved. Now, as Le Monde put it in 2002, "neutrality is no longer an option."

In May 1942, his chief, Sabatier, was named prefect of Aquitaine by Pierre Laval, the head of the Vichy government. Papon was appointed as general secretary of the prefecture of Gironde in charge of Jewish Affairs.

Papon later claimed he had Gaullist tendencies during the war. A confidential report from the Nazis at the time shows that in April 1943, he identified himself as a "collaborationist" during "personal or official conversations." Another document from July 1943 called him a "good negotiator."

During World War II, Papon served as a senior police official in the Vichy régime. He was the second official in the Bordeaux region (the secretary-general of the prefecture of Gironde) and the supervisor of its Service for Jewish Questions. With authority over Jewish affairs, Papon regularly collaborated with Nazi Germany's SS, which was responsible for the extermination of Jews. Under his command, about 1,560 Jews were deported. Most were sent directly to the camp of Mérignac and then they were transported to Drancy internment camp, near Paris, and finally to Auschwitz or other concentration camps for extermination.

From July 1942 to August 1944, 12 trains left Bordeaux for Drancy; about 1,600 Jews, including 130 children under 13, were deported; few survived. Papon also implemented the antisemitic laws voted by the Vichy government. By July 1942, he had "dejudaised" 204 companies, sold 64 land properties owned by Jewish people and was in the process of "dejudaising" 493 other businesses.

Rehabilitation under the Fourth Republic

Some résistants questioned his activities, but Papon avoided being judged by the Comité départemental de libération (CDL) of Bordeaux for his role during Vichy, as he was protected by Gaston Cusin. He presented a certificate attesting that he had taken part in the Resistance, although its authenticity was later rejected.

The CDL were in charge of the épuration, the pursuit of collaborators. During the Liberation of France, the Resistance in Bordeaux was very weak. It lacked members because of internal dissensions and German repression. Maurice Sabatier, Papon's mentor and chief, was accused by the CDL of having "boasted" that his prefecture was one of the most efficient concerning the "percentage" of "deportations." He was sentenced only to a suspension of several months during which he was paid half his salary. In 1948, he was awarded the Legion of Honour for general wartime service.

Papon became chief of staff of the commissaire de la République, a high civil servant that replaced Vichy's prefects. He effectively retained the same functions as during the war. Charles de Gaulle and others "perfectly knew his past," according to Olivier Guichard. De Gaulle had received him personally after the liberation of Bordeaux in September 1944.

Papon was first named prefect of the Landes department in August 1944 and then chief of staff of the commissaire of the Republic of Aquitaine, under Gaston Cusin. When Cusin left Bordeaux, his successor, Jacques Soustelle, a Gaullist Résistant, confirmed Papon into his functions. A few months later, Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury also confirmed him there.

In October 1945, Papon was appointed as vice-director of Algeria at the Minister of Interior. A year later, he became secretary of state to the Ministry of Interior Jean Biondi of the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Eric Roussel, a De Gaulle biographer, wrote that to the general and president, who was concerned with the survival of the Republic against undemocratic movements:

"the authority of the state is so sacred, the danger constituted by the communists so intolerable, that he is disposed to accept without too many problems of conscience men who may have, for a fairly long time, worked on behalf of Vichy."

Papon was named prefect of Corsica in January 1947 by Léon Blum's government and, in October 1949, prefect of Constantine in Algeria by Radical Henri Queuille's government (with SFIO member Jules Moch at the Interior). He went to Morocco in 1954 as general secretary of the protectorate, where he helped repress Moroccan nationalists. He returned to Constantine in 1956 during the Algerian War (1954–1962), where he actively participated in the repression, including the use of torture against the civilian population.