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“Vive la République, et vive la France.”
Emmanuel Macron closed his 21 May speech marking the 25th anniversary of the passing of the Taubira law, which recognised slavery as a crime against humanity, with the customary patriotic slogan. As applause rippled around the reception room of the Elysée Palace, whose construction was financed by a 18th-century slave-owning magnate, Leïla Brédent, a black soprano from Guadeloupe, launched into a stirring rendition of La Marseillaise.
Watching from my office in Bristol, following videos shared by friends attending the ceremony, I felt a profound unease. The speeches were moving, the symbolism powerful. Yet there was a question I could not shake: how are descendants of enslaved Africans in France’s overseas territories supposed to interpret these patriotic sentiments when we continue to live with the consequences of the system that France claims to commemorate and condemn?
Part of the answer lies not in history books, but in our very bloodstreams.
More than 90% of the populations of Martinique and Guadeloupe are, according to French health authorities, believed to carry traces of chlordecone, a toxic pesticide which was used extensively on banana plantations. The chemical contaminated rivers, coastal waters and agricultural land across both islands and is expected to remain in the environment for centuries. The French Caribbean also records some of the highest rates of prostate cancer in the world, with researchers continuing to investigate links between chlordecone exposure and a range of serious health conditions.
Far from being an accident, this was a political choice.
As early as 1972, France’s now defunct Commission of Toxic Products had recommended a ban on chlordecone because of concerns about its dangers. Yet banana plantation owners in Martinique and Guadeloupe secured repeated exemptions from a ban, allowing its continued use until 1993, three years after its use was made illegal in mainland France. Economic interests prevailed over public health. Once again, overseas territories were expected to bear the consequences.
For many in Guadeloupe and Martinique, the chlordecone scandal is not merely an environmental disaster. It is evidence that the structures of power established during slavery never truly disappeared. The same concentration of economic influence that once defended the plantation system continued to shape political decisions centuries after abolition.
It was against this backdrop that Macron announced a parliamentary vote on repealing the notorious Code Noir, the 1685 decree that codified the enslavement of Africans in the French colonies. As a Guadeloupean engaged in reparatory justice work, I followed that vote with particular interest.
The Code Noir legally reduced human beings to property and granted extraordinary powers to enslavers. Although France’s legal traditions had long proclaimed freedom as a natural right, colonial interests repeatedly secured exceptions whenever economic profit was at stake. The contradiction survived abolition by 180 years; the law itself remained on the statute books until the 28 May repeal vote in the national assembly.
Repeal matters. But we should not mistake the removal of a legal relic for the dismantling of its legacy.
The inequalities created by slavery continue to shape economic life in the French Caribbean. Wealth and commercial power remain concentrated in the hands of a small number of families whose fortunes can often be traced back to the colonial era. Consumers in the overseas territories routinely pay substantially more for basic goods than in mainland France, despite lower average incomes.
The structures of dependency that slavery helped create have not disappeared; they have evolved.
Yes, France is among the first nations to recognise slavery as a crime against humanity and is finally repealing the Code Noir. But symbolic acts, however important, cannot substitute for justice.
Macron’s speech stopped short of an apology. Yet acknowledgment and apology are among the most important first steps in any process of repair. Around the world, institutions are increasingly recognising this reality. In Britain, universities, churches and financial institutions have issued apologies and launched reparatory justice initiatives. In the Netherlands, the prime minister and the king have formally apologised for slavery, while the government has established dedicated mechanisms to advance reparatory and social justice.
More recently, France itself attracted attention when Pierre Guillon de Prince, whose family wealth was built on the enslavement of Africans in Haiti, publicly apologised for that inheritance. With Martinican activist Dieudonné Boutrin, he has helped create the International Federation of Descendants of the History of Slavery, focusing on dialogue and repair.
The French government therefore does not need to invent a model from scratch. There are examples to draw upon. The Caribbean nations’ 10-point plan for reparatory justice offers a practical framework, combining historical acknowledgment with measures addressing public health, education, economic development and psychological rehabilitation.
The first step, however, is to listen. The lived experiences of the people of Guadeloupe, Martinique and other former colonies must shape the discussion and the priorities for action. It is not for Paris to decide what repair should look like on behalf its former colonies.
Repair requires those who benefited from historical injustices to listen without defensiveness and to acknowledge that the consequences of slavery are not confined to the past. They remain visible in contaminated land, unequal economies and persistent health disparities.
The Code Noir may now be gone from the statute books, but its effects remain embedded in the soil, the economy and the bodies of those who continue to live with its consequences.
Commemoration without repair risks becoming performance. Apologies without action ring hollow. If France is serious about confronting its colonial past, it must move beyond remembrance towards reparative policies that address environmental contamination, public health inequalities, economic concentration and the enduring disparities experienced by those in its former colonies.
Remembering history is all well and good. But the task before France is to repair the damage that history has caused and to guarantee non-repetition.
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Marie-Annick Gournet is an associate professor and associate pro vice-chancellor for reparative and civic futures at the University of Bristol
