20 February 2007 :

Senators and lower house lawmakers wrote the banning of the death penalty into the French Constitution.
The two houses of parliament gathered for the special session at the Palace of Versailles and passed the measure 828-26. The death penalty has been outlawed in France since 1981, but it is not written in the constitution.
"We are accomplishing the wish of Victor Hugo in 1848, the pure, simple, irreversible abolition" of the death penalty, former Justice Minister Robert Badinter told lawmakers.