Slavery: the repeal of the “Black Code” definitively adopted after a symbolic vote in the Senate

Nearly two centuries after the abolition of slavery in France in 1848, Parliament ratified on Tuesday, by a final vote of the Senate, the symbolic abrogation of the “Black Code” and the main texts governing slavery in the French colonies.

Adopted unanimously in the National Assembly in May, the bill from Guadeloupean MP Max Mathiasin (Liot) received an identical vote during a very solemn session in the Senate. The scope of the text, supported by Emmanuel Macron, is above all symbolic: the royal edicts of the 17th and 18th centuries governing slavery became obsolete with its abolition in 1848, but were never formally repealed. They thus remained enshrined in French law, although devoid of any legal effect.

These texts notably reduced enslaved people to the rank of “movable property”, which could be bought or sold by a master, and provided for heavy sanctions in the event of escape, ranging from mutilation to branding to the death penalty. “The Code Noir organized and legitimized slavery. It no longer has its place in our law, even as a vestige. This text belongs to our history, not to our legislation,” insisted Overseas Minister Naïma Moutchou, who came to support the initiative in the Senate. “To recognize is neither to settle nor to turn the page, but to commit to ensuring that the history of slavery, colonization and their heritage is never forgotten, disguised or trivialized,” added Aurore Bergé to the senators.

The Minister Delegate for the Fight against Discrimination also noted that racism had “not ended with the abolition of slavery”, and took the opportunity to defend a bill for “national cohesion” and “the fight against racism and anti-Semitism”, which she promised to submit to senators “in December”.

Blind spots?

The bill also provides for the submission by the government of a report on the legacy of colonial law and its lasting effects, particularly in terms of racism, as well as on the place given to the history of slavery in school curricula. However, it leaves aside the sensitive question of reparations, claimed in several overseas territories. Several senators called for continued work on this aspect.

Some elected officials in both houses of Parliament recall that after the abolition of slavery, the State compensated former slave owners, and not freed people, who remained without compensation. A legacy that continues to echo the persistent inequalities between overseas and France, as well as the discrimination suffered by black people.

Some senators also regretted having to vote on a “legistically incomplete” text, like the former socialist minister of Overseas Territories Victorin Lurel or the Reunion senator Évelyne Corbière Naminzo, who denounced the absence of explicit mention of the texts having governed slavery in the Indian Ocean, particularly in Reunion. The communist group, of which she is a member, abstained. Naïma Moutchou assured that these texts were well covered by this law, explaining that “it is a system that we want to repeal as a whole” and that “drawing up a list of texts one by one is taking the risk of forgetting some of them”.