Maurice Papon (; September 3, 1910 – February 17, 2007 ) was a French civil servant, leading the police in major prefectures and in Paris during the Nazi Occupation of France and into the 1960s.

Papon was known to have tortured insurgent prisoners ( 1954 – 62 ) as prefect of the Constantinois department during the Algerian War.

That same year, Papon was personally awarded the Legion of Honour by French President Charles de Gaulle, whose government was struggling to retain the French colony.

Papon was in charge of the Paris police during the February 1962 massacre at the Charonne metro station, which took place during a peaceful anti-Organisation armée secrète ( OAS ) demonstration organized by the Communist Party ( PCF ).

After the 1965 disappearance of the Moroccan dissident Mehdi Ben Barka, leader of the Tricontinental Conference, in which the police were suspected of killing him, Papon was forced to resign.

After May 1968, Papon was elected as a representative ( député ) in the French legislature, and served several terms.

After a long investigation by the government, Papon was tried ( 1995-1998 ); in 1998 he was convicted of crimes against humanity.

Papon was born in Gretz-Armainvilliers, Seine-et-Marne, the son of a solicitor-turned-industrialist and his wife.

His father was elected mayor of Gretz in 1919, when Papon was nine years old, and held that office until 1937.

After entering public service at the age of 20, Papon was quickly promoted.

Papon became a member of the Ligue d ' action universitaire républicaine et socialiste, of which Pierre Mendès France was also a member.

Mobilized on August 26, 1939 in the 2nd colonial infantry regiment, Papon was sent to Tripoli.

Papon was appointed as the vice-chief of bureau to the central administration of the Ministry of Interior, before being named in February 1941 vice-prefect, 1st class.

Papon was appointed as general secretary of the prefecture of Gironde, in charge of Jewish Affairs.

By mid-1944, when it was clear that the war was turning against the Germans, Papon began to prepare for the future, meeting once with Gaston Cusin, a civil servant engaged in the Resistance.

Papon was first named prefect of the Landes department in August 1944, and then chief of staff of the commissaire of the Republic of Aquitaine under Gaston Cusin.

In October 1945, Papon was appointed as vice-director of Algeria at the Minister of Interior.

In March 1958, Papon was named Prefect of Police for Paris by Félix Gaillard ( Radical )' s government.

Papon was also in charge during the February 8, 1962 demonstration against the OAS pro -" French Algeria " terrorist group.

Papon was forced to leave his functions after the kidnapping, in Paris, of Mehdi Ben Barka, Moroccan dissident and leader of the Tricontinental Conference, in October 1965.

With the recommendation of Minister of Interior Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury, Maurice Papon was next day named prefect of the police.

De Gaulle was forced to ask Papon to resign at the start of 1967 ; he was succeeded by Maurice Grimaud as prefect of police.

Before his appointment as chief of the Paris police, Papon had been, since 1956, prefect of the Constantine department in Algeria, where he actively participated in the repression of and the use of torture against the civilian population.

This special constabulary force, put under the authority of the Algerian Affairs Coordination Centre of the Prefecture of Police ( Centre de coordination des Affaires algériennes de la préfecture de police ) and supervised by the military, was under the control of the police prefect, Maurice Papon.

Mr. Papon, prefect of the police, and Mr. Legay, general director of the municipal police, assisted to these horrible scenes ...

On 1 January 1962, the police prefect Papon declared to the police forces under his orders: " On 17 October you won ... the victory against Algerian terrorism ...

Charges of crimes against humanity, complicity of assassination and abuse of authority were first brought against Papon in January 1983.

* Maurice Papon: March 15, 1958 – January 18, 1967

Nine trade unionists are killed by French police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Paris Prefecture of Police.

* 1961 – Scores of Algerian protesters ( some claim up to 400 ) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.

The questioning of France's past had become a national obsession by the 1980s, fuelled by the highly-publicised trials of war criminals such as Klaus Barbie and Maurice Papon.

On May 6, 1981 details about his past under Vichy emerged, when Le Canard enchaîné newspaper published documents signed by Papon that showed his responsibility in the deportation of 1, 690 Bordeaux Jews to Drancy internment camp from 1942 to 1944.

Papon also implemented the anti-Semitic laws voted by the Vichy government.

Some Resistants questioned his activities, but Papon escaped being judged by the Comité départemental de libération ( CDL ) of Bordeaux for his role during Vichy.

Papon oversaw the repression during the Paris massacre of 1961: on October 17, 1961, a peaceful march organized by the Algerian National Liberation Front contravened a curfew imposed by Papon.

Nine members of the Confédération Générale du Travail ( CGT ) trade union, most of them communists, were killed at Charonne métro station by the police forces, directed by the same Maurice Papon under the same government, with Roger Frey as Minister of Interior, Michel Debré as Prime minister and Charles de Gaulle as president, who did all they could to " dissimulate the scale of the October 17 crime " ( Jean-Luc Einaudi ).

) The newspaper showed documents signed by Papon which demonstrated his responsibility in the deportation of 1, 690 Jews of Bordeaux to Drancy from 1942 to 1944 These documents had been provided to the satirical newspaper by one of the survivors of Papon's raid, Michel Slitinsky, in the spring of 1981.

While Papon claimed that he had worked to grant humane conditions of transport to the camp of Mérignac, historians testified that his concerns were motivated by efficiency.

Although Papon claimed that he had used ordinary trains, and not livestock trains as used by the SNCF in numerous other transfers, the historians asserted that he was trying to prevent any demonstration of sympathy toward the Jews from the local population.

His doctors affirmed that Papon, by this time 92 years old, was essentially incapacitated.

* 1999 – Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity.

After his return in November 1940, following the fall of France, Papon agreed to serve the Vichy government.

For example, Maurice Papon, who was judged in the 1990s for his role in the Vichy collaborationist government, gave orders for the Paris massacre of 1961 as the head of the Parisian police.

A report that Papon had prepared for Interior Minister Roger Frey, the prime minister, and the head of government, Charles de Gaulle, was not included in the consulted records.

Nine members of the CGT trade union, most of them communists, were killed by the police forces, directed by the same Maurice Papon under the same government, with Roger Frey as Minister of Interior, Michel Debré as Prime Minister and Charles de Gaulle as president, who did all they could to " dissimulate the scale of the 17 October crime " ( Jean-Luc Einaudi ).