The family of Mr. Badinter, a lifelong Socialist who led the campaign resulting in the 1981 abolition of capital punishment in France, demanded that neither the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen, nor the far-left France Unbowed party founded by Jean-Luc Melenchon, be allowed to attend the ceremony.
Ms. Le Pen's National Rally, formerly the National Front, has espoused many of the views most detested by Mr. Badinter - antisemitism, xenophobia, rejection of European unity - so the request from Mr. Badinter's widow was perhaps predictable. The party duly respected her wishes. But the sharp rebuke to Mr. Melenchon, who as a fellow socialist sat with Mr. Badinter in the Senate for many years, was a stark indication of the splintering of the left in France and the eclipse of the moderate social-democrat views embraced by the former justice minister.
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