By Gerard Leval

On Oct. 9, 2025, France honored Robert Badinter, the late minister of justice and president of the French Constitutional Council, by inducting him into the Panthéon in Paris, where France has enshrined its greatest personalities.

Badinter, who led the fight against capital punishment in France and pursued a variety of human rights causes, was a proud Jew. He made confronting antisemitism one of his personal battles. He spoke and wrote widely about Jewish history and antisemitism and became one of the foremost defenders of the Jewish community in France.

At the ceremony which marked Badinter’s entrance into the Panthéon, only the fifth Jew to be so honored, France’s President Emmanuel Macron delivered a stirring oration that highlighted Badinter’s life and his contributio

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