10 Sep:France’s Last Execution
The guillotine claimed its last victim on 10th September, 1977, when murderer Hamida Djandoubi was executed in Marseille, his grim end marking the closing chapter of nearly two centuries of clinical beheading, stretching back to the French Revolution.
Overseen by France’s last official executioner Marcel Chevalier, the event was private and hushed – a far cry from the raucous public spectacles that had once drawn huge crowds. Witness accounts described Djandoubi drinking rum, smoking his final cigarettes, and even stalling for time before being led to the blade. Adding to the eerie symbolism, he was made to fix his prosthetic leg before kneeling at the block.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discover how beheading was initially considered a humane and egalitarian form of execution; consider the French public’s support for the death penalty throughout the seventies, even as Mitterand stood on an electoral platform to abolish it; and reveal what it all had to do with Star Wars…
CONTENT WARNING: rape, murder, description of execution
Further Reading:
• ‘This Will Be the Last, by Monique Mabelly, Translated by Ryann Liebenthal’ (Harpers, 1977): https://harpers.org/archive/2014/02/this-will-be-the-last/
• The History of the Guillotine (ThoughtCo, 2019): https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-guillotine-p2-1991842
• ‘The French Revolution’ (dir. Robert Enrico, 1989): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKNqP_kYV4
#Macabre #Crime #France #70s #Revolution