Overview

• Ashwani Kumar confirmed he will be present at the Oct. 9 state ceremony at the Panthéon in Paris.
• He said the invitation came from President Emmanuel Macron and he publicly thanked the French leader.
• Kumar described Robert Badinter as a distinguished humanist and recalled a personal association over several years.
• The Panthéonisation is an exceptional French honor that ceremonially inters or commemorates national figures at the Panthéon.
• Badinter, a former justice minister and president of the Constitutional Council, is widely credited for leading France’s abolition of the death penalty.