Paris torture instruments auction suspended after protests

31 March 2012

Hands crusher

Collection Fermand Meyssonnier/Etude Cornette de Saint Cyr

By RFI

An auction of instruments of torture due to take place in Paris on Tuesday has been cancelled after protests from France’s culture minister and human rights campaigners.

The planned sale was organised on behalf of the descendants of a former French public executioner, Fernand Meyssonnier, who died in 2008 at the age of 77.
As well as carrying out 198 executions in Algeria between 1957 and 1962, Meyssonnier amassed a comprehensive collection of 350 tools of torture and documents relating to punishment down the ages.