René Edmond Floriot (20 October 1902, Paris – 22 December 1975, Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French lawyer.

Life

Floriot drove "a research staff of six lawyers, known as "l'usine Floriot" (the Floriot factory). Gifted with prodigious memory, he can simplify the most complex case for the dullest of jurors. While other French lawyers deliver elegantly vague speeches to nodding, berobed judges, Floriot deals in facts, not forensic flourishes. In a profession heavily weighted toward lawyers with social standing, Floriot has succeeded entirely on drive and shrewdness." Floriot became "one of the best and most expensive of Parisian criminal lawyers". Later he participated in some film productions.

People defended by Floriot

Otto Abetz

Floriot "saved Otto Abetz, the hated Nazi German ambassador to Vichy France, from execution; Abetz received 20 years imprisonment, was later freed, and died in a car accident."

Marcel Petiot

Onassis-Latopadis lawsuit

Floriot was also involved in the "Onassis-Latopadis" lawsuit.

Pierre Jaccoud

Gustave Mentré

In 1961, Floriot "braved President de Gaulle's wrath in winning a suspended sentence for General Gustave Mentré, an accused conspirator in the Algiers coup."

Ben Barka case

Floriot defended two detectives implicated in the kidnap-murder of Moroccan political opponent Ben Barka; one was acquitted, the other got six years.

Moise Tshombe

Eventually, the Algerian authorities delayed Tshombe's extradition and he died in Algiers, while under house arrest, in 1969.

Publications