France will launch a campaign to abolish the death penalty worldwide as part of its forthcoming presidency of the European Union.
President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Robert Badinter, the justice minister of the late President Francois Mitterrand, who led the abolition of the death penalty through the French parliament in 1981.
According to the French President, a conference dedicated to the 40th anniversary of abolishing this punishment in France will be held in Paris. The event will bring together civil society groups from countries where the death penalty is used.
France, chairing the EU Council in the first half of 2022, will work with other member states in accordance with a UN resolution that requires countries to report annually on the number of death sentences and executions, he said.
France became the thirty-fifth country in the world to ban the death penalty. Since then, subsequent repeals and a moratorium mean that most countries no longer use punishment, although several major powers, including China, Iran, and the United States, are complying.
According to opinion polls, the public in France remains sharply divided on this issue.