Ambre Troizat, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In a unanimous vote on Thursday, May 28th, French MPs voted to repeal the royal edicts dating from the 17th and 18th centuries that governed the status of black people in the former French colonies, of which the Code Noir is the most iconic.
In 1848, France voted to abolish slavery, but this vote was never accompanied by the repeal of the provisions governing slavery, which had since become obsolete. That has now been done.
Although debates were at times heated regarding the wording of the text or the issue of reparations, all parliamentary groups voted in favour of the bill introduced by independent MP Max Mathiasin, a native of Guadeloupe. After the vote, he spoke with great emotion, hailing “a further step forward, a tribute to the men, women, and children who were enslaved,” whilst being greeted with a hug from his overseas colleagues in the chamber.
A week ago, the bill received the support of Emmanuel Macron, the president believing that the retention of such texts in law, even if they have no legal effect, constituted “a betrayal of what the Republic stands for”—a “shadow over our law,” according to Mathiasin.
The repealed texts treated enslaved people as “movable property” that could be acquired by a master in the same way as any other asset.
The Code Noir alone embodies all these injustices, and its repeal takes on a powerful symbolic significance. It is often mistakenly attributed to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV, whose statue adorns the forecourt of the Palais Bourbon where MPs gather; this explains that they felt invested with a quasi-mystical mission in repealing it.
Behind this media victory lies a somewhat more complex historical reality. Allow us, in a few lines, to pay tribute to the great minister that was Colbert and to set the record straight on this famous Code Noir.
The Code Noir is the name given to a royal ordinance of 1685, drafted by Colbert’s son and not by Colbert himself—and for good reason, since he died in 1683. It sought to codify the status of slaves in the main sectors of the French colonies affected by slavery: the islands of the Americas (the West Indies), the Mascarene Islands (an archipelago that today comprises Mauritius and Réunion) and Louisiana, a term which at the time referred to a vast area occupying the heart of the North American continent, centred on the Mississippi River. In Colbert’s time, the use of slaves in these territories was limited, as they were mainly used to grow tobacco, which required little labour. It was the development of sugar cane cultivation that caused a surge in the importation of slave labour from the 1680s onwards. Sugar cane cultivation, let us recall, was ardently defended by a certain Voltaire, a man of the Enlightenment, who, a century later, would prefer it to the bleak “snow-covered acres of Canada”—deprived of slaves, but full of faithful Catholics.
If one examines the text with a little good faith and historical awareness, it becomes clear that the Code Noir cannot be reduced to the instrument of repression to which it is so often equated. Its preamble, for example, recalls the ontological equality of all men. It is true that the principle was blithely circumvented in practice, but it is nonetheless significant that it was publicly affirmed. Despite their condition, slaves had the dignity of being baptised as Catholics and receiving the sacraments: they were not subhuman but creatures of God. The question of the mission to them was fundamental. Far from being a sign of contempt for others, it demonstrates, on the contrary, a deep interest in others as men of sufficient value to deserve conversion. The French carried out this mission towards both black and indigenous peoples. A few decades later, American colonists would not always go to such lengths regarding Native Americans. Incidentally, the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man affirms equality for all … but only in the metropolis: the colonial territories are not covered.
Furthermore, it is important to emphasise that the Code Noir was designed to regulate relations between master and slave. Contrary to what is often claimed, it does not establish a ‘free-for-all’ in favour of the master. Torture was prohibited; should a free man father a child with a slave, he was advised to marry her, thereby enabling the enslaved woman to be freed. Punishments that may seem extremely harsh and cruel—and which are so by today’s standards—are not specific evidence of ‘racism,’ since they existed in the same way for white people in metropolitan France: for instance, branding with a hot iron, or the death penalty for domestic theft. The fundamental problem lies rather in the fact that the Code Noir was, in the end, rarely enforced: cases of masters being convicted for mistreating slaves are virtually non-existent. But this sort of nuanced analysis is completely lost on the professionals of legal repentance.
It may be surmised that the abrogation vote will form part of a framework aimed at accelerating the reparations—both material and symbolic—demanded of France by former colonies under its rule or in the overseas territories now integrated into the French Republic.
One clause of the text stipulates that the government must submit a report on colonial law and its long-term effects, particularly in terms of racism, but also on the place accorded to the history of slavery in school curricula. But it was, above all, the broader issue of reparations that formed the heart of the debates. At a reception at the Élysée Palace to mark the 25th anniversary of the law recognising the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity, the head of state touched upon this issue, stating that “this immense question” should not be sidestepped. At the same time, he stated that one must not “make false promises either” and did not announce any concrete measures in this regard.
During the committee hearing, several MPs pointed out that in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery, France had paid reparations to former slave owners rather than to the enslaved people themselves. Socialist MP Philippe Naillet, from La Réunion island, pointed out that in the overseas territories, “formal equality has not led to real equality”, denouncing territories plagued by poverty and unemployment, with the persistence of “a trading post economy.” He called not for “financial reparations, but for reparations in terms of public policy.” Yet the overseas departments rely today very heavily on public funds.
Incidentally, since MPs seem to be concerned—with a sense of urgency that does them credit—about the fate of 17th-century slaves, we would like to suggest that, during their moments of idleness on the benches of the National Assembly, they turn their attention to the decrees issued by the Convention during the Reign of Terror, which proclaimed the extermination of the Vendée, populated by dangerous Frenchmen serving God and their king. These unjust and murderous decrees, calling for a mass slaughter in the name of republican principles, have never been repealed.
In 2019, the conservative senator Emmanuelle Ménard proposed several amendments as part of a bill on obsolete laws, calling for the repeal of the decree of 19 March 1793, known as the “Revolutionary Outlawing Act,” or the law of 1 August 1793, or the “Law on the Annihilation of the Vendée.”
As the senator’s case makes clear, the decree of 19 March 1793 declared as outlaws all those who opposed the general conscription ordered by the Convention, who took part in gatherings in opposition to it, or who displayed a sign of refusal to obey (such as wearing the white cockade or the ‘Sacré-Cœur’—the emblem of the rebels). No legal protection was granted to these people, whether under the Declaration of the Rights of Man proclaimed in 1789 or the laws or customs of war. On the contrary, these were systematically violated by the troops under the Convention’s command, who took no prisoners. The wounded were hunted down and killed even in hospitals. Promises of honourable surrender or amnesty were made and then betrayed.
The aim of the law of August 1 was just as explicit and specifically targeted the rebellious region of the Vendée. It reads: “The brigands of the Vendée must be exterminated before the end of October; the salvation of the fatherland demands it.”
Ménard’s amendments were all rejected. The peoples of Africa and the West Indies were treated with greater consideration than the simple people of the Vendée, who are still waiting for the crimes of which they were victims to be acknowledged. They will no doubt wait for a long time yet.