Overview
- The state ceremony on Thursday will feature a procession up rue Soufflot, a speech by President Emmanuel Macron under the nave, and Badinter’s installation in the 1789 revolutionaries’ vault alongside Condorcet, Abbé Grégoire and Gaspard Monge.
- A public vigil at the Conseil constitutionnel will open Wednesday evening, with the coffin available for people to pay their respects before its transfer to the Panthéon.
- The program emphasizes memory, justice and abolition through musical interludes including Schubert, readings from Victor Hugo and Badinter’s pleadings, and a text read by actor Guillaume Gallienne selected by Élisabeth Badinter.
- Singer Julien Clerc is scheduled to perform his 1980 song “L’assassin assassiné,” a touchstone of the abolition campaign highlighted by organizers.
- Timed to the commemoration, Marseille’s Mucem will display one of its guillotines from Oct. 9, while a class from Cognin invited by the Élysée will attend to connect civic education with Badinter’s life story.