FRENCH MORAL CALCULUS :

Nazi Collaborator Freed in France (Associated Press, September 19, 2002)

Wartime collaborator Maurice Papon walked out of prison today and into a storm of criticism after judges ruled him too old and too sick to finish the 10-year sentence he received for helping send Jews to Nazi death camps.

To victims of France's wartime government and their families, the decision by appeals court judges to release Papon, 92, after he had served less than three years of his sentence erased the victory they won with his 1998 conviction.

Papon was convicted for complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting 1,690 Jews to Germany as the second-in-command of police in the Bordeaux area. Most were sent to the Auschwitz death camp, and only a few survived.

Apparently the lives of 1690 French Jews are worth a mere three years of this scumbag's life. What leaps out at you is that he "walked out". He should only have left in a body bag, but that he could still walk on his own power is somehow especially galling/gauling. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 19, 2002 12:07 PM