1977: France stages its last execution using the guillotine.
A Tunisian immigrant living in Marseilles, Hamida Djandoubi, was executed for the torture-slaying of his girlfriend. He had killed her in revenge, after she reported to authorities that he had tried to force her into prostitution.
The guillotine, despite its associations with the French Revolution, was not native to France. Variants were used in other European countries long before Marie Antoinette and Citizen Robespierre lost their heads. One machine was used as early as 1307 to dispense justice in Ireland. France's preferred method of doing away with offenders prior to the Revolution was breaking on the wheel, a ghoulish medieval practice meant to inflict as much pain as possible prior to final release.
The guillotine was adopted by Louis XVI as a humane form of execution. Louis himself was soon to find out just how humane it really was. As was the unfortunate Mr. Djandoubi nearly two centuries later.
His appeal denied, Djandoubi mounted the scaffold at 4:40 a.m. on the 10th. Marcel Chevalier, France's chief executioner, dropped the blade. The method, already under intense criticism from opponents of capital punishment, drew more fire following Djandoubi's execution, when a doctor in attendance testified that Djandoubi remained responsive for up to 30 seconds after decapitation.
It was not the first time that the condemned appeared to remain conscious for an uncomfortably long period of time before life finally oozed out. Henri Languille, guillotined in 1905, reportedly looked at a witness who called out his name -- after being decapitated.
Chevalier's son, Eric, was also present at the execution. He was there to observe, and to prepare for eventually succeeding his father as the nation's chief executioner. As it was, Eric had to find another line of work when France officially abolished the death penalty in 1981.
(Source: Various)
