The French Parliament is expected to take another step in repealing ancient legal documents that once defined slaves in colonies as "dynamic assets", in a symbolic move related to the country's colonial history and slavery.
The French House of Representatives will discuss a bill to repeal royal decrees called "Code noir" or "Black Code", before the document is submitted to the Senate for consideration at an unspecified time.
President Emmanuel Macron, who will leave office next year after 2 terms, publicly supported the abolition of these laws last week. Although France ended slavery more than 170 years ago and recognized slavery and slave trade as "crimes against humanity" since 2001, decrees issued from the 17th and 18th centuries have never been officially repealed.
According to estimates by experts, France was once the 3rd largest slave trade nation in Europe, after Britain and Portugal. From the 17th to the 19th century, more than one million African men, women and children were forced onto ships leaving French ports to become slaves in plantations in the Caribbean and overseas colonies.
The first decrees of the "Black Code" were drafted during the reign of King Louis XIV. This document stipulates that all slaves must follow Catholicism and prohibits slave owners from forcing them to work on Sundays. However, the code also describes slaves as "movable property" that can be inherited, and applies harsh punishments such as ear cuts to those who try to escape. The children of slaves are also forced to continue their status similar to their parents.
Mr. Max Mathiasin, a parliamentarian from Guadeloupe, an overseas territory that was once a French colony, said that repealing these decrees would be "a strong political gesture and symbol".
According to Mr. Max Mathiasin, the "Black Code" has "organized the denial of humanity to women, men and children who are turned into slaves just because of their origin and skin color".
France once ended slavery in 1794 under the French Revolution. However, Napoleon Bonaparte later sent troops to Guadeloupe in 1802 to restore this regime. It was not until 1848 that France once again abolished slavery.
