François Bayrou promises a text to formally abolish the Black Code which governed slavery

François Bayrou promised on Tuesday, May 13, a text to Parliament to formally abolish the Black Code , which legislated slavery in the French colonies.

"I undertake, on behalf of the government, that a text enacting the abolition of the Black Code will be presented to Parliament and, I hope, voted on unanimously," the Prime Minister affirmed in the National Assembly, during the session of current questions to the government.

He was responding to the leader of the Liot deputies, Laurent Panifous , who was asking him to abolish this ordinance issued in 1685 by Louis XIV which "governs the enslavement of human beings and reduces them to the legal status of movable property." "While one might believe that the 1848 decree abolishing slavery repealed the Black Code, this is not the case. No text has formally abolished it," the deputy stressed.

"Thanks to your question, I am discovering this legal reality that I was completely unaware of, and I imagine all those around us, that the Black Code was not abolished in 1848 as we believe, after having been abolished during the French Revolution, then reinstated by Napoleon," François Bayrou replied.

"If the Black Code was not abolished in 1848, it must be. We must have the will, the capacity, the choice of historical rehabilitation to reconcile the Republic with itself," he added.

Last Saturday in Brest, the Prime Minister called for people not to remain silent about "the terrible and monstrous history of slavery," on the occasion of the national day, on May 10, of remembrance of the slave trade, slavery and their abolition.

He described "a terrible and monstrous story in both its dimensions and its subject matter: approximately 4 million women, men and children experienced slavery from 1625 to 1848 in the French colonies."