Jacques Vergès

Jacques Vergès (Ubon Ratchathani, Siam, 1925 – Paris, 2013) was a French lawyer of Vietnamese origin and an anti-colonial activist, known as “the devil’s advocate”. His life spans much of the twentieth century, from the French Resistance against Nazi occupation to the courtrooms of later decades, and his name remains tied to the debate over how far the right to a defence should go.

Brought up on the island of Réunion, he joined the Free French Forces of Charles de Gaulle in 1942 and fought in Italy, France and Germany. After the war he studied history, Hindi and Malagasy, and later law in Paris. He was a member of the French Communist Party, and his youthful friendships took very different paths later, including those with Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan.

As a lawyer he became known for defending FLN militants during the Algerian War. His most famous case was that of Djamila Bouhired, convicted over a bombing of an Algiers café. There he developed what he called the “rupture defence”: rather than simply answering charges, the accused challenged the legitimacy of the court and turned the accusation on the prosecution. The method brought him fame and enemies alike. In 1960 he was jailed and temporarily barred from practising law.

His later career was equally controversial. He defended Klaus Barbie, Carlos the Jackal, Khieu Samphan and the Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, among others. From 1970 to 1978 he vanished from public life without explaining where he had been, a gap that fed endless speculation. He wrote around forty books about his cases and his life.

His legacy is divided. To some he was a fierce defender of the accused and a persistent critic of colonialism; to others, a lawyer who placed his talent at the service of unacceptable causes. His career shows clearly the tension between defending anyone and defending what one considers just.