France's National Assembly voted unanimously on Thursday to repeal the Code Noir, a 17th-century law that classified enslaved people as property, marking a historic step in acknowledging the country's role in the transatlantic slave trade. The vote, passed 254-0, puts an end to the legal framework signed by King Louis XIV in 1685, which codified the brutal treatment of enslaved individuals in French colonies.
End of a Dark Legacy
The Code Noir, or Black Code, had remained on the books for nearly 180 years after France abolished slavery in 1848. The law allowed enslaved people to be worked, beaten, sold, raped, or killed with impunity. Its repeal was hailed as a rare show of political unity in a deeply divided parliament.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who had previously floated the idea of reparations, said the code “should never have survived the abolition of slavery.” He added that the silence and indifference toward the Code Noir for nearly two centuries had become “a form of offense.” Macron stressed that while reparations must be considered, the country should not make false promises.
Emotional Debate in Parliament
The debate in the lower house was charged with emotion, as many lawmakers expressed astonishment that the law still existed. Steevy Gustave, an MP from Martinique whose ancestors were enslaved, tearfully told the assembly: “No vote alone can repair centuries of shattered lives. We are not descendants of slaves; we are descendants of human beings born free, then reduced to the worst – reduced to slavery.”
Max Mathiasin, an MP from Guadeloupe who tabled the motion for repeal, said he had bought copies of the original text but had never been able to read it in full. “As the great-great-grandson of people who were enslaved, I had never been able to read it in full. This was made by human beings, against human beings,” he said. He described the vote as “a way of restoring our ancestors, restoring our humanity” and fulfilling the French Republic's promise of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
The Code Noir's Provisions
The Code Noir consisted of 60 articles that governed every aspect of an enslaved person's life. Article 44 declared enslaved people to be “movable property,” while other clauses mandated mutilation for those who fled and decreed that the word of an enslaved person counted for nothing in legal proceedings.
Historical Context and Legacy
France was the third-largest slave-trading nation, after Britain and Portugal, shipping an estimated 1.4 million Africans to sugar plantations in its colonies. The wealth generated from this trade built cities like Nantes and Bordeaux. The most profitable plantations were on Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), where enslaved people rose up in 1804 to secure independence. However, France forced the freed slaves to pay reparations to former owners, a debt that was not fully paid off until 1947.
After abolishing slavery, France retained several colonies. The four oldest – Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and Réunion – became overseas departments in 1946. Their 1.9 million residents, mostly descendants of enslaved people, are French citizens but remain among the country's poorest territories, with unemployment nearly double that of mainland France and many living below the poverty line.
Ongoing Inequalities
Mathiasin noted that in Guadeloupe, the most important state positions are held by whites. Pierre-Yves Bocquet, deputy director of France's Foundation for the Remembrance of Slavery, said the Code Noir was at the root of the country's “colonial exception,” which established the idea that the founding motto of the French republic did not apply to certain people under its rule. “Even today, we accept that people in the overseas territories can have fewer rights than in mainland France,” he said.
