This Day in History: 10 September 2020
10 September 1977
43 years, ago, Hamida Djandoubi became the last person executed by the guillotine. He was a Tunisian agricultural worker and was convicted of murder. After moving to Marseille, France, he kidnapped, tortured and murdered his former girlfriend, Élisabeth Bousquet. One month later, he kidnapped another girl who was able to escape and report him to the police. Even though he was the last person executed in France, he was not the last condemned. After capital punishment was abolished in France in 1981, following the election of François Mitterrand, no more executions occurred. Those sentenced to death had their sentences replaced.
During the French Revolution, the guillotine first gained fame. Supporters of the machine viewed the devices as more humane than other execution techniques, such as hanging and use of the firing squad. In 1792, a French decapitating machine was built and tested on cadavers, before the first person in Revolutionary France was executed using this method. More than 10,000 people lost their heads by guillotine in this period, including Louis XVI and Mary Antoinette, the former king and queen of France. However, use of the guillotine continued in France in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Want to find out more about the guillotine? Click here for more information, or here for more about the last execution.
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