Meanwhile: Papon the 'Anti-Righteous'

Ten years ago, having to explain to an international audience who Papon was, the formula which came spontaneously to my mind was "anti-Schindler." Steven Spielberg's film, "Schindler's List," had worldwide repercussions. Its hero, a German businessman, a petty swindler, a total opportunist, a shaky husband, was at the least an improbable hero. Yet Schindler made a difference for the good. His famous list made it possible to save the lives of almost 1,200 people.

Papon was an honest man, a good father, a rather good student, in a society upset by war and defeat. He also made a difference. But in contrast to Schindler, it was for the bad, by preparing a list of Jews to be arrested, including children aged 9 and 10, for the German occupiers.

The trial of the secretary general of the Gironde of 1942 is finished. But there is a second Papon, whose "trial" can only be posthumous. This is the prefect of police of Paris for nine years, from 1958 to 1967, the man who ordered the bloody repression of the large Algerian demonstration of Oct. 17, 1961.

France has been reconciled with its role in World War II. It remains for it to be reconciled with its imperial and colonial history. There is no doubt that it will be the responsibility of the next president of the Republic, a man or woman young enough not to have known the pangs of the Algerian war.

It is a history that must be approached without taboos, without complexes; it will go to our capacity as a country to close the wounds of the past and to create the best possibility to face the challenges of the present, first and foremost, the integration of the Muslims of France.