France turns page on Code Noir as Parliament approves symbolic repeal

Nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery in its colonies, Parliament has given its final approval to legislation formally repealing the Code Noir – the royal edicts that organised and legitimised the enslavement of people under French colonial rule.

Senators unanimously backed the bill on Tuesday, following an equally unanimous vote in the National Assembly in May. Proposed by Guadeloupe MP Max Mathiasin, the measure targets the royal edict of 1685 and the legislation stemming from it.

The vote comes 25 years after France recognised the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity under the 2001 Taubira law.

Its significance is primarily symbolic. The texts governing slavery ceased to have legal effect following abolition in 1848, but had never been expressly repealed. Parliament's decision clears the way for their formal removal from French legislation.

France votes unanimously to abolish Code Noir, a colonial-era slavery law

Closing a colonial legal chapter

The Code Noir reduced enslaved people to the status of “movable property” – possessions that owners could buy and sell.

It also prescribed brutal punishments for those who tried to escape, including branding with a hot iron, mutilation and, for repeated attempts, the death penalty.

Ahead of the Senate vote, Overseas Territories Minister Naïma Moutchou said the repeal would address an unacceptable remnant of France's colonial past.

“The Code Noir [Black Code] organised and legitimised slavery. It has no place in our legal system, not even as a relic. This text belongs to our history, not our legislation,” she told French news agency AFP.

The bill also requires the government to submit a report on the legacy of colonial law and its lasting effects, particularly in relation to racism, alongside the place given to the history of slavery in school curricula. A copy of the "Black Code" of 1743.

The scope of the repeal had prompted discussion before the Senate debate, particularly over how to recognise the different legal texts applied across France's former colonies.

Senator Evelyne Corbière Naminzo, who represents Réunion and sits with the Communist group, had argued that the legislation governing slavery in the Indian Ocean should be explicitly mentioned, with the “same weight” as the Code Noir applied in the French Antilles.

“When we talk about a symbol, we must not leave anyone out,” she told AFP ahead of the vote.

The Senate's rapporteur, Louis Vogel, defended the bill's broader wording, arguing that it already covered all the relevant texts.

“If we start drawing up a list, we are bound to leave some things out,” he told AFP, saying a symbolic law should above all “establish a principle”.

Tuesday's approval completed the bill's passage through Parliament.

How slavery money built the Élysée, France's presidential residence

Reparations remain an open question

While the repeal secured unanimous parliamentary support, it leaves aside the question of reparations – a longstanding demand in several French overseas territories.

During the National Assembly debate, MPs highlighted the contrast between the treatment of slave owners and those they had enslaved after abolition.

The French state compensated former owners for the loss of what the law had treated as their property. The emancipated people themselves received no compensation.

For supporters of reparations, that imbalance remains central to discussions about how France should address the consequences of slavery.

Those debates extend beyond remembrance to the persistent inequalities between overseas territories and mainland France, and the discrimination faced by black people.

The government report envisaged by the bill offers a way to examine those connections, although the legislation itself provides no compensation or other reparations measures.

(with newswires)