‘Such huge consequences’: pressure mounts on France to act on enslavement reparatory justice | France

IIn the French port city of Nantes, once France’s largest departure point for ships smuggling enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, a new wooden mast rises 18 meters above the seashore.

Pole of Brotherhood and MemoryThe session, which opened this month, marks a turning point in France’s complex relationship with the legacy of its history of enslavement; just as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, was under pressure to make major statements about the restorative justice process.

“We are not responsible for the past, but we are responsible for the present and the future,” said Dieudonné Boutrin, a descendant of enslaved Africans trafficked from Benin to the French Caribbean island of Martinique.

Boutrin, 61, who created the pole, heads the grassroots organization La Coque Nomade BrotherhoodIt is dedicated to “breaking the silence” on the issue of slavery and encouraging discussion on restorative justice and community relations.

A permanent, free-standing structure, the pole is unlike any other commemorative monument in France: it was designed by descendants of enslaved people and built by local students at vocational colleges. The pole, which was unveiled this month alongside a new International Federation of Descendants of the History of Slavery, is expected to be replicated in other cities in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the United States as a network of physical markers of the global movement for restorative justice. The next one is likely to be built in Bristol, England’s historic slave port.

The unveiling of the mast shows how France is under pressure to announce a framework for discussions on compensatory justice in the coming weeks. Macron is entering his final months as president amid growing political strife over racism in politics, media and society, and with far-right polls at their highest ahead of the 2027 presidential race.

The sense of urgency comes amid outrage in France, where representatives of Britain and other European countries, as well as abstaining from a March UN vote that described the transatlantic chattel slave trade as “the greatest crime against humanity” and called for reparations, were seen as “a concrete step towards righting historical wrongs.”

Guadeloupe senator Victorin Lurel wrote in an open letter to Macron last month that France made a “moral, historical, diplomatic and political mistake” by abstaining and “tainted” its international image.

Competing with Portugal and England from the 16th to the 19th centuries, France was the third largest European nation to smuggle enslaved people across the Atlantic and Indian oceans. France was responsible for the kidnapping and enslavement of approximately 13% of the estimated 13 to 17 million men, women, and children forcibly removed from Africa across the Atlantic.

France made history in 2001 by becoming the first country in the world to recognize the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity. law It was introduced by French Guiana’s leading MP, Christiane Taubira. But as Macron prepares to host a ceremony to mark the law’s 25th anniversary on May 21, campaigners and politicians say France must now go further with clear steps on restorative justice.

Paris is vital to the global debate over reparations because many “overseas departments and territories” remain part of France, including the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, as well as French Guiana and the Indian Ocean island of Réunion and Mayotte. In these places, structural inequities and inequalities in employment, health, cost of living, pollution and environmental safety are seen by local parliamentarians as a direct legacy of the mechanisms of enslavement and colonialism.

France also faces claims for potentially billions of dollars in reparations against Haiti after imposing a harsh financial penalty on the country in 1825 to compensate the owners of enslaved people after the Haitian revolution. This debt, which many Haitians blamed for two centuries of turmoil, was only fully repaid to France in 1947. In 2025, Macron announced the establishment of a joint commission with Haiti to study the issue, which is expected to be concluded by the end of this year.

Boutrin’s initiative in Nantes shows how grassroots dialogue shapes moods and breaks taboos in France. He worked in the public sector and as a trade unionist in Nantes for decades, and also led organizations dealing with the legacy of slavery, but he grew up in Martinique, where his father was a carpenter.

“My father taught us values. There were eight of us, and my mother died when I was nine. There was no money, we had to survive. Sometimes I wouldn’t eat for two or three days… It’s very complicated. I know what misery is, I know where I came from, and I know how to fight to make sure others don’t go through what I went through.”

Growing up, Boutrin said, talking about being descended from enslaved people was taboo, not part of her heritage until she came to Nantes. “This wasn’t discussed,” he says. “We learned in school that we were descendants of the Gauls… We didn’t talk about it. It was a shame because slavery had huge consequences.”

Protests over the high cost of living in Martinique and Guadeloupe in recent years have highlighted inequalities in the French Caribbean sections. French national statistics show marked disparities between them and on mainland France, people in Martinique pay an estimated 30% to 42% more for food. The rise to prominence in the island’s economy of a handful of families descended from white owners of enslaved people and the widespread use of the toxic pesticide chlordecone to combat insects in banana plantations, which has devastating effects on health and cancer levels, has sparked outrage.

Boutrin said of the islands’ history with enslaved people: “This has created great trauma in our minds today, and that’s why I’m doing this. My whole job is to try to reconcile ourselves with this past and force everyone to rebuild in a different way to create change… The only thing that interests me is that the younger generations can live together calmly, learn to understand and love each other.”

Five years ago, Boutrin met Pierre Guillon de Princé, a descendant of 18th-century Nantes slave shipowners whose ships took part in 18 voyages between 1766 and 1788, transporting some 4,500 slave Africans to the Caribbean, at least 200 of whom died at sea. Guillon de Princé’s ancestors also owned a sugar refinery and coffee production facility in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, then France’s most important colony and center for enslaved people.

Boutrin and Guillon de Princé, 86, began working together to organize educational tours of Nantes’ slavery history and spark discussion about restorative justice.

At the unveiling of the Pole of Brotherhood, Guillon de Princé made what is thought to be the first official apology made by someone in France for his family’s role in transatlantic slavery. “Faced with the rise of racism in our society, I felt a responsibility to not allow this history to be erased,” he said, calling for dialogue on reparations.

Guillon de Princé, who works in water services at Nantes city hall, said he did not inherit any legacy from ancestors who eventually faced financial ruin. “But if there is shame, if we don’t talk about it, we can’t deal with the real problems of our day,” he said. “I think the connection between enslavement and modern-day racism has not been made enough.” He said his apology was directed to all communities in the Caribbean “for the impact of racism on their daily lives, health and well-being.”

Jean-Marc Ayrault, former Socialist French prime minister and one of the politicians who pressed for steps towards reparations, said France should not be seen as “sleeping” on this important moment in history and should mobilize other European countries.

France has so far focused mainly on returning African cultural heritage artifacts looted during colonization, and a new law is expected to facilitate the return process, which is seen as too slow.

Organizations in France now want to focus on people and communities. Recourse through the courts has not proven feasible; In 2023, France’s highest court, the cour de cassation, rejected a request for state compensation for descendants of enslaved people, mainly related to Martinique.

Ahead of the Africa-France summit in Nairobi on May 11-12, Ghana’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said there were signs that France was ready to “cooperate” on “restorative justice”. A member of Macron’s entourage said France and Ghana would work together on the issue “which is important to the president.”

Marie-Annick Gournet, vice-chancellor for restorative and social futures at the University of Bristol, was born in Guadeloupe. He said it was crucial for the inauguration ceremony in Nantes that France show action and not just talk on the issue of enslavement.

“France recognized this as a crime against humanity in 2001, but if no steps are taken to address this problem, it will simply be an invalid law,” he said. “I think France is very good at legislating and making a noise; especially at the political level, the right nose. But we don’t see any change. There is nothing in terms of reparations. Yes, there is a law that recognizes this, but there is a compensatory justice work that needs to be done behind it.”

Gournet said of the inequality in Martinique and Guadeloupe: “They are part of France without being part of France. And because the people there are not treated the same, there is a sense that colonialism is going on in these islands. Whether we like it or not, the reality is the inequality that reflects exactly that in terms of people’s experiences. And if the government here and the people in power there are not ready to hear it, to understand it, words become just words and nothing changes.”

France Director Aïssata Seck Slavery Memorial Foundation, An advisory body to the government, which is partly funded by the state, said: “The issue of compensation is still a taboo subject in France. A few years ago it was difficult to even say the word compensation.” But he said he hoped France would be ready today to “start discussions… and gather people around the table to talk about the issue.” For France, he said, this means looking beyond the “prism of financial reparations” on issues of heritage, anti-racism and tackling inequality, particularly in the Caribbean.

Seck said: “It is important to emphasize that France is the European country with the largest number of people of African descent, and this is linked to its history of colonial enslavement and colonisation. Since we have such a history, the resources devoted to this must be significant.”

In Nantes, former deputy mayor of Bristol Asher Craig, who followed Boutrin’s long fight to build the Pole of Brotherhood and Memory, said: “This kind of work by black communities is still not supported to the level it should be. It’s no accident. It’s systemic. And if we’re serious about justice, then funding, visibility and power needs to follow.”