Former French justice minister Robert Badinter died at the age of 95, his publishing house Fayard and the Constitutional Council he chaired for nine years told dpa on Friday. French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the lawyer, author and politician, calling him a “figure of the century, a republican conscience, the French spirit,” in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Throughout his life, he was the voice of justice,” said French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. Badinter was instrumental in the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981. “The abolition of the dea…