President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday endorsed the symbolic repeal of royal decrees that governed slavery in French colonies, as France confronts its history and the sensitive issue of reparations.
Calls have been mounting for Macron, whose second and final five-year term ends next year, to initiate a formal dialogue on how France should respond to the enduring legacy of slavery.
He said the issue of reparations should be addressed but warned against making "false promises."
France abolished slavery more than a century ago but royal decrees from the 17th and 18th centuries that established the legal status of enslaved people in its colonies were never formally overturned.
In 2001, France became the first country in the world to recognise slavery and the slave trade as "crimes against humanity", but stopped short of any reparations.
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the landmark legislation at the Elysee presidential palace on Thursday, Macron said the continued existence of the royal decrees was a "form of offence" and "a betrayal of what the Republic stands for."
"That is why I am asking the government to take up the bill aimed at repealing the Code Noir," Macron said.
On Wednesday, lawmakers on the National Assembly's law committee backed the bill, which now needs to go to a vote in both houses.
Macron also said that the "immense question" of reparations must not be avoided.
"But it is also a question on which we must not make false promises," he warned.
"We must have the honesty to say that we can never fully repair this crime, because it is impossible. You will never one day be able to put a number on it, or find words that would bring this history to a close."
Macron indicated that he had not made a final decision on reparations.
France, home to nearly 70 million people, has long sought to be colour blind and racial discrimination is meant to be taboo.
But observers and rights activists have pointed to deep-seated racism in the country.
The French were the third largest slave traders in Europe, after the British and the Portuguese.
France abolished slavery in 1794 under the French Revolution, but Napoleon Bonaparte ordered troops to be sent to the Caribbean island Guadeloupe in 1802 to restore the practice there.
France then abolished the practice again in 1848.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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