I am speaking here as a French, from what I personnally feel, and from I have read so far in newspapers and heard at the radio. I would like to add a few lines of thinking.
I personnally am against death penalty, mainly for the reasons Lavindathar has stated : what if you kill an innocent ?
Many people in France are less concerned about the fact that the guy will be killed, than about the fact that the execution will be PUBLIC. I am among them.
Some papers also say that the man was a lunatic, thus, as we believe in France, not totally responsible for his actions. What is the point of punishing someone if he doesn't understand what he did wrong and why he is punished ? As we see it, the man should be put into a center for lunatics, where he would get medical healing. Then, if the doctors succeed in curing him, he would get a new trial. Or stay there for life if he can't be cured.
Last point : Justice is NOT vengeance. Killing him will NOT make his victims come back to life. And killing him, in a way, makes the society not better than the man himself is. We in France have the case of a former Nazi (now a very old man), who have been recently condemned for crimes against humanity. He is more than 80, he never expressed any regret or apology for what he did. He will stay in jail until he dies. Killing him, as we feel, would put us at the same level as he. I personnally think that knowing that you won't go out of your cell until you die is a terrible punition. Maybe more terrible than a quick death.
Some say that public execution is to be understood as a way to remind people what they risk if they commit crimes, in an attempt to lower the crime rates. Does it work ? On that point, I have no opinion so far, but it makes me VERY uneasy.
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The world is my oyster !
And now I have the knives to open it ...