A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #364 - Culture - Read Jean-Jacques Gandini, The Papon Trial (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Jean-Jacques Gandini, lawyer, Human Rights League activist, and founder 
of the anarchist journal Réfractions, attended the entire Papon trial in 
1997. He wrote a book about it, The Papon Trial: A History of Ordinary 
Ignominy in the Service of the State. This book is now being republished 
by Le Passager clandestin in an updated version, expanded with a preface 
by historian Johann Chapoutot and an afterword by lawyer Arié Alimi. But 
why today? And why Papon? Jean-Jacques Gandini answers these two 
questions. Today, "it is 'so as not to forget' in the face of the rise 
and trivialization of far-right ideas that constantly rewrite history, 
particularly that of the 1940-1945 period." And why Papon? Before this 
trial, the third in France for crimes against humanity, a crime without 
a statute of limitations under French law, was held in 1997, the first 
two trials had involved a Nazi, Klaus Barbie, and a militiaman, Paul 
Touvier, whose background represented the figure of a far-right villain 
who was already an activist before the conflict began.

The "Papon case" is exemplary in that it is a perfect illustration of 
the "state lie" built on the Gaullist myth of "Resistance France," which 
asserts that "Vichy was not France," that Vichy was "null and void," in 
the words of Charles de Gaulle in August 1944. While we know from the 
pioneering work of American historian Robert Paxton that this is not the 
case, this meticulous reconstruction of the "Papon dossier" provides 
valuable and damning evidence regarding his individual responsibility 
for the deportation of thousands of Jews to death camps. Gandini's 
remarks, following in Paxton's footsteps, demonstrate, through the lens 
of an individual's trajectory, the weight of these acts in the smooth 
running of a totalitarian regime.

While this is not the core of the book, Gandini does not forget that 
Papon was also in charge of police repression on October 17, 1961, 
during "the Parisian police's Kristallnacht." Here again, he points out 
Papon's lies and recalls his responsibility for the increased repression 
of independence activists in what he calls the "anti-Algerian apartheid" 
implemented upon the appointment of Prefect Papon in 1958.

The author's meticulous and well-documented work undermines Papon's 
defense. Papon knew, Papon decided to be a zealous servant of the Vichy 
regime, not out of anti-Semitism, but purely out of personal ambition. 
Against "reason of state," Jean-Jacques Gandini opposes the "duty of 
disobedience," and reminds us that "the ethics of conviction must take 
precedence over the ethics of operation." A book that speaks to us as 
much about the past as it does about our present... and perhaps even our 
future.

David (friend of AL)

Jean-Jacques Gandini, The Papon Trial, The Clandestine Passenger, 2025, 
240 pages, 12 euros.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Jean-Jacques-Gandini-Le-proces-Papon
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