Paul Touvier

Paul Claude Marie Touvier (born the April 3rd 1915 with Saint-Vincent-on-Jabron and dead the July 17th 1996 with the Prison of Fresnes) is the first French condemned for crimes against humanity in 1994 for acts made as a chief of the militia Lyon is born during the Second world war.

First steps

Resulting from a Savoyard family very catholic and nationalist of eight children, Paul Touvier leaves the Institution Saint-François-of-Dirty of Chambéry at sixteen years for an use of expeditionary with the PLM with Ambérieux. The day before the Second world war, already widower, he lives with Chambéry. Within the 8th Division of North-African infantry it takes part in the war where, following the bombardment of Castle-Thierry, it is found wandering.

Militiaman

He returns in 1940 to Chambéry occupied by the Italy NS and adheres to the French Légion combatants in October, as a person in charge of district. The life of Touvier takes a new course with the creation of the GROUND and the Milice where the social heritage, fighting notoriety count less than the action and the ideological conviction.

It profits from the first training course of the École of the executives of the Militia to Uriage where its qualities of police officer are detected. It is in charge of the second service of the Militia in Savoy.

From Savoy, Touvier is called with Lyon where he is national team-member, regional chief of the Militia (covering ten departments), national inspector and in January 1944 operations manager with the secretariat of State to the Maintenance of law and order. The policy and the political police bring to Touvier the social success, of psychological satisfactions and the material advantages. Regional chief of the 2nd service of the Militia in Lyon in 1944, it took part in the persecution of the Juif S and in the fight against the resistant . He infiltrates Resistance, questions prisoners, directs raids, plunders goods and counteracts the assassination of Philippe Henriot while making shoot seven Jews with Rillieux-the-Pope, the June 29th 1944.

Become the “Touvier chief”, it improves its ordinary thanks to plunders and plunderings of Jewish goods that him and its men “ requisition ”. He will attend priests who chose the Collaboration, of which the abbot Stephan Vautherin, who will invent a title of chaplain of the Lyons Milice, and which will exert its ministry near the of torture ones and… of tortured. The troop scoute which it then founds under the title “knights of Notre-Dame” does not have any relationship with “the Order of the knights of Notre-Dame”, brotherhood founded after the Release by Gerard Lafond with the councils of Dom Gabriel Gontard, Abbé of Saint-Wandrille, and, since, canonically set up in Chartres.

Purification

In August 1944 Touvier remains with the seat of the Milice in Lyon, 5 impasse Cathelin. It does not follow the German , being believed protected following its contacts with moderate Resistance. He wants to enjoy a small badly acquired fortune. The abbot Stephan Vautherin advises it and obtains from him the release of prisoners.

Per hour of the release of Lyon, the chief of the Second service of the Milice however knows what awaits it: inter alia, its probable participation in the assassination of Victor Basch, president of the League of the Human rights, and its wife, execution of seven Jewish hostages with Rillieux-the-Pope, arrests, deportations.

Tracked, Paul Touvier, will find its first refuge at the abbot Stephan Vautherin, who hides it under a false floor while the resistant ones excavate the house. He succeeds in leaving the Region of Lion, by carrying a sum of a half-million francs of the time.

A boarding house (bought 300.000 francs) offers a shelter to Touvier with Montpellier. It finds then to Ceignac then to Boutencourt in Oise, where members of its family are stopped by the gendarmes which are not interested in Touvier, which presents papers in the name of “Trichet”. The September 10th 1946, Paul Touvier is condemned to died by Contumace by the court of justice of Lyon, and the March 4th 1947 with the same sorrow by the court of justice of Chambéry.

In July 1947, it is stopped with Paris, where it tried some armed robberies (including one in a bakery), and plotted with other survivors of purification, before being denounced. In front of the police officers who question it, the double condemned to death betrays his/her friends, of which Stephan Vautherin. At the end of the interrogations, before being dispatched in front of the firing squad to Lyon, he escapes under rocambolesques conditions or while profiting from complicities. Its long mare starts, it will last 43 years.

The mare

The fugitive one knocks on the door of the churches: initially Holy-Clotilde, then Saint-François-Xavier and the Abbey of the Source, in the father Dom Olph Strong (Benedictine). His trace is lost. In August 1947, in a vault of the Street Mister-the-Prince, it is married clandestinely with an young woman whom it met in Paris, by the abbot Pierre Duben, chaplain of the prisons. Two children will be born: a girl (1948) and a boy (1950).

In the Years 1950, it hides with Chambéry, the cradle of its family, under a false identity and with the support of certain catholic mediums. It finds the support of there the abbot Tissot, first Vicaire of the Cathédrale. The priest of the parish of crowned heart, the father Eugene Morel-Chevillet brings assistance and assistance to him. When a danger seems to threaten the family, always required, it finds refuge near the regular clergy (stay with the Abbaye of Hautecombe, in Savoy, with the convent of the Dominican of Éveux, with the Chartreuse de Portes, in the Ain, the Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes, in the Sarthe…). It Jacques Brel in 1959 will meet and will become its protected .

Grace of the President of the Republic

The years pass, and for the old one condemned to death, in 1967, arrives the hour of the regulation of its judgments. It remains however, and this for the life, under the blow of a prohibition of stay in the area of Lyon and of the confiscation of all its goods. During years, Touvier will devote its ecclesiastical energy, and its relations to obtain its grace near the President of the Republic, with the will to collect its share of heritage, which the additional sorrows prohibit to him.

The key component of this operation will be Monseigneur Charles Duquaire, former secretary of the diocese of Lyon, and near collaborator to the cardinal Jean-Marie Villot. The meeting takes place in 1957, via the Abbé Duben. Moved by the history by the family , it will make grace of Paul Touvier the great business of its life (with him the father Blaise Arminjon, provincial of the Jesuits which maintains with Paul Touvier a followed correspondence, and Dom André Poisson, superior of the Grande Chartreuse). The catholic lobby, which supports Paul Touvier, will arrive after years of efforts, to obtain a grace of the president Georges Pompidou, the November 23rd 1971 in a logic of reconciliation.

Crime against humanity

This measurement is made public by “the Express train” and starts a storm. Victims deposit new complaints for crimes against humanity, crimes declared imprescriptible. Associations of resistant carry felt sorry for in November 1973 against Touvier for complicity of crime against the humanity, which justifies the assassination of the husbands Basch and the shooting of Jews with Rillieux-the-Pope. Death threat by the resistant ones, Paul Touvier disappears again.

One finds it in many convents or monasteries, which will receive the visit of the family in escape. The Large Chartreuse in the Isere, employs in 1972 a secretary who is made call Paul Berthet, of the name of his wife. It is accommodated a few days as host, according to the tradition bénédictine, in several abbeys of which Solesmes, Fontgombault, forever received Hautecombe, but it in Wisques. Touvier do not cease changing place, alive in fear of a treason. The examining magistrates Martine Anzani, then Claude Grellier will believe several times to have located the fugitive ones.

The official instruction begins in 1979 and it is on November 27th, 1981 that a Warrant for arrest is deposited against him. Paul Touvier will make appear in 1984 in the Dauphiné Libéré of the obituary thanks following his pseudo-death to try to make diversion but the continuations remain open.

In front of the failure of the police force to find Touvier, it is the gendarmerie which is assigned by the examining magistrate Claude Grellier to take again the investigation at the beginning of 1988.

It is the perseverance of an officer of gendarmerie, Jean-Louis Recordon, set on history and impassioned by this tracking out of the commun run, which will be right finally of this extraordinary network of solidarity.

Knights of Notre-Dame

The March 15th 1989, an investigation of the Canard Enchaîné blames the Chevaliers of Notre-Dame, founded by Dom Gerard Lafond, and makes the amalgam with the troop scoute of Stephan Vautherin. The satirical newspaper recalls that the father of Gerard, Jean Lafond, old directing of the Newspaper of Rouen, was shown of “collaboration” to the Release, like all the Press of the time, omitting to add that he was discharged then by the military Tribunal of Metz, and that its other wire, Etienne Lafond, commander of the Legion of honor to the title of Resistance (Alliance network), is former deportee with Elrich. The Order of the knights of Notre-Dame is at the origin of an autonomous association, Notre-Dame Fraternity of the Thank you for the assistance with the prisoners and their families. It is for this reason that the president of this association, Jean Pierre Lefebvre (old Waffen S of the Division Charlemagne), helped Touvier and his family financially, but without never providing for its lodging.

Circumstances of the arrest

With the agreement of the judge Jean-Pierre Getti, colonel Recordon will place under phone-tappings the principal leaders of the Knights of Notre-Dame, adding Gerard Lafond to it, become higher in December 1985, then abbot of Wisques, in the Pas-de-Calais, and which, since this date, does not play any more any active role within the Order that it founded, like Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, old of the Division Charlemagne become thereafter an enthusiastic Christian, visitor of prison and president of Association ND. thank you in Paris. Following the article of the “ Canard Enchaîné ”, and with the disorder caused by this business among the knights of Notre-Dame, the gendarmes garner enough information to pass to the action. The May 22nd 1989, the Abbaye of Wisques is invested, but they discover no trace of Touvier there, then the residence of Jean-Pierre Lefebvre. While following the track of the money paid by Fraternity ND. mercy, the gendarmes go back to Genevieve Penou, which was the secretary of the Abbé Duben, (which Maria the former militiaman). Genevieve Penou is responsible for “ the chaplaincy of specialist education ”, an organization attached to the Conférence of the bishops and placed by the Catholic aid. The investigators go to the monastery traditionalist Saint-Michel-in-Brenne, where part of the luggage of Touvier is still. It is finally stopped the May 24th 1989 with the Prieuré Saint-François, with Nice.

Lawsuits

Following this arrest, the defense of Paul Touvier is entrusted to Maître Jacques Trémolet de Villers, omnipresent character in the Extrême right-hand side catholic Frenchwoman and recognized lawyer.

The August 13rd 1992 the Court of criminal appeal concludes by a Non-lieu which causes a sharp emotion. The Public prosecutor of Paris, Pierre Truche, form an appeal in front of the Court of appeal which breaks this stop of withdrawal of case the November 27th.

The Court of Assizes of Yvelines Touvier judge and condemns it to the life imprisonment the April 19th 1994. He dies in the Prison of Fresnes the July 17th 1996, at the 81 years age.

The July 25th, a mass is celebrated in its honor with Paris in the Église Saint-Nicolas-of-Hanging-post. The priest Philippe Laguérie expressed his support for the former militiaman there by fustigating the V {{E}} République, the Média S, the civil part, LICRA, etc . Touvier is introduced like a “ delicate, significant and moderated heart ”. The priest also encensé the judgment of “God which recalled it to Him” for better disparaging the Justice Men who cannot forgive. In the assistance, one noted the presence of Pierre Bernard, appointed Seine-Saint-Denis.

References

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