18 September 2026 marks 45 years since the French National Assembly voted to approve the bill abolishing the death penalty.

François Mitterrand had promised the measure in the 1981 presidential campaign. After the election, Justice Minister Robert Badinter presented the bill and delivered an address that became a legal landmark.

The National Assembly voted 363 to 117. A substantial part of public opinion still supported capital punishment.

The Senate later approved the text. The law was promulgated on 9 October 1981, the date of legal abolition, distinct from the 18 September vote.

France’s last execution had taken place in 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi was guillotined. The case was also the last use of the guillotine by a Western European state.

France later promoted abolition internationally. In 2007 the prohibition was written into the Constitution.

The 1981 debate set human rights and the irreversible nature of miscarriages of justice against claims about deterrence. The law permanently changed the range of punishments.

Forty-five years later, 18 September marks the decisive parliamentary stage; 9 October remains the date of promulgation.

Image: European Parliament Multimedia Centre / Wikimedia Commons. Robert Badinter, 2001. Archive photograph, not from 18 September 1981. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: L'abolition de la peine de mort | Assemblée nationale; L'abolition de la peine de mort | Conseil constitutionnel.