The Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation and the History and Heritage Commission of the Montpellier Bar Association, with the participation of the town of Castelnau-le-Lez, are organizing an exceptional lecture by Jean-Olivier Viout, deputy prosecutor at the Klaus Barbie trial, on Tuesday March 31, 2026.
Jean-Olivier Viout is a French magistrate, President of the Conseil d?orientation du Mémorial national de la prison de Montluc and of the Association du Mémorial de la Shoah de Lyon.
In 1987, he was deputy public prosecutor in Lyon, where he worked alongside public prosecutor Pierre Truche during the Klaus Barbie trial.
This lecture will trace the career of this child of Nazi fanaticism, who became a Gestapo officer and was known to the French public as "the Butcher of Lyon".
Having fled to Bolivia in 1945, after having been used by the Americans as an intelligence agent during the Cold War, he escaped the trials and sentences that France wanted to apply.
However, the law passed on December 26, 1964 established the imprescriptibility of crimes against humanity, enabling French Justice to obtain an international warrant.
The trial of Klaus Barbie began on May 11, 1987 at the Rhône Assize Court. More than a hundred associations and individuals joined as civil parties, and more journalists followed the proceedings, which were filmed in their entirety. Jean-Olivier Viout looks back at this historic trial.
Tuesday March 31, 7pm at the Maurice Ravel auditorium at Kiasma, 1 rue de la Crouzette, Castelnau-le-Lez
Free admission - Reservations required from the Museum
04 67 14 27 45 ? crhrdmusee@gmail.com
Reservation deadline: Tuesday, March 24
Jean-Olivier Viout is a French magistrate, President of the Conseil d?orientation du Mémorial national de la prison de Montluc and of the Association du Mémorial de la Shoah de Lyon.
In 1987, he was deputy public prosecutor in Lyon, where he worked alongside public prosecutor Pierre Truche during the Klaus Barbie trial.
This lecture will trace the career of this child of Nazi fanaticism, who became a Gestapo officer and was known to the French public as "the Butcher of Lyon".
Having fled to Bolivia in 1945, after having been used by the Americans as an intelligence agent during the Cold War, he escaped the trials and sentences that France wanted to apply.
However, the law passed on December 26, 1964 established the imprescriptibility of crimes against humanity, enabling French Justice to obtain an international warrant.
The trial of Klaus Barbie began on May 11, 1987 at the Rhône Assize Court. More than a hundred associations and individuals joined as civil parties, and more journalists followed the proceedings, which were filmed in their entirety. Jean-Olivier Viout looks back at this historic trial.
Tuesday March 31, 7pm at the Maurice Ravel auditorium at Kiasma, 1 rue de la Crouzette, Castelnau-le-Lez
Free admission - Reservations required from the Museum
04 67 14 27 45 ? crhrdmusee@gmail.com
Reservation deadline: Tuesday, March 24
