French lawmakers voted unanimously on Thursday to formally repeal an archaic slavery-era law still on the statute books, while stopping short of demands for reparations.
Though slavery was abolished by France in 1848, the “Code noir” had never been repealed. The legislation stems from the 1685 royal decree of King Louis XIV, which governed enslaved people as “movable property” within French colonies.
The largely symbolic step comes amid demands for reparations from some in France and elsewhere who link current social problems and inequalities to the legacy of colonialism and slavery.
The 254 lawmakers present in the lower chamber voted unanimously for the proposal, which still needs to be debated and approved by the upper house of parliament.
If it becomes law, the bill will also require the government to report to parliament on a range of topics, including the lasting consequences of colonial law and the effects of slavery for French overseas territories, how the history of slavery is taught in schools, and its legacy in French society.
“This proposal does not claim to erase history, nor to single-handedly heal the wounds of history,” said Max Mathiasin, a centrist member of parliament from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, who presented the law.
“It aims to take a new step, to make a powerful act of remembrance, justice and recognition, by formally repealing the Code noir and all the texts that stem from it.”
Mathiasin, like the majority in France, said he was unaware the code was still on the books until recently.
Some lawmakers argued that the bill repealing the Code noir should have included demands for reparations, but Mathiasin said he did not want to “weigh down” his proposal with such matters.
Debate Over Reparations
Marcellin Nadeau, a left-wing lawmaker from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, did not vote, saying: “In my opinion, we must fight on the issue of reparations, which is the essential question.”
Steevy Gustave, a politician who also hails from Martinique, now a French overseas department, said the repeal was necessary, “but no vote alone can repair centuries of shattered lives.”
“We are not descendants of slaves,” he told fellow lawmakers. “We are descendants of human beings born free, then reduced to the worst—reduced to slavery.”
French President Emmanuel Macron backed the motion this month, saying that the old legislation should not have survived until the present day.
“The silence, even the indifference, that we have maintained for nearly two centuries toward this Black Code is no longer an oversight,” Macron said. “It has become a form of offense.”
The president stopped short of a formal apology or of making concrete proposals on the contentious issue of reparations.
Macron said that the issue of reparations is “a question we must not refuse,” but one on which “we must not make false promises,” defining repair work as truth-telling, education, and historical work, rather than in monetary terms.
France was the third-largest dealer among European nations in the transatlantic slave trade, after England and Portugal. According to the Memorial for the Abolition of Slavery at Nantes Museum, France initiated 13 percent of the expeditions that formed part of the trade from the 16th to the 19th century.
France shipped an estimated 1.4 million Africans to plantations whose sugar wealth built the French cities of Nantes and Bordeaux, with the French empire eventually spanning four continents.
Under the code, which had 60 articles, enslaved people who ran away could face branding, violence, or even death.
Calls for reparations, ranging from official apologies to financial compensation, have grown louder in recent years, while opponents of reparations say that modern states and institutions should not be held responsible for historical crimes.
In 2001, the Taubira law made France the first country to call the slave trade a crime against humanity.
In March, France abstained in a vote at the United Nations on an Africa-led resolution declaring slavery the “gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations.
There have been calls for monetary reparations by the UK from former colonies, now part of the Commonwealth, but no moves toward it, with the British government making clear that this is not under consideration.
The Brattle Report, published last year by the University of the West Indies—and backed by Patrick Robinson, a judge who sits on the International Court of Justice—claimed that the UK owed more than £18 trillion (about $24 trillion) in reparations for its role in slavery in 14 Caribbean countries.
The British government played a significant role in ending the slave trade through the act of abolition in 1807 following a long campaign led by the independent politician William Wilberforce.
In the United States, the matter of reparations is highly contentious with federal legislation stalling for decades. In 2024, California approved an apology but no cash, amid concerns it would bankrupt the state and be unlawful.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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