France on Saturday marks its National Memorial Day for Slavery and Its Abolitions. The town of Arcueil in the Paris suburbs is unveiling a commemorative stele – part of broader national efforts to create more memorial sites that acknowledge the country's role in slavery.
Since 2006, France has on 10 May commemorated the slave trade and its abolition. with the date chosen as it marks the definitive adoption in 2001 of the Taubira Law, which recognises the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.
The first cities to establish a memorial to slavery site in France were those with a history directly linked to the slave trade, such as the ports of Nantes, Bordeaux and La Rochelle.
Bordeaux museum working to change narrative on slavery past
Arcueil, in the southern suburbs of Paris, however, wanted to have a memorial site despite not having this direct link.
The small town, of 21,000 inhabitants, has installed a commemorative stele at a memorial site located between two primary and secondary schools.
"The project was to install a broken column, like slavery that was also broken. You can see that the top is a little bit broken," explains Guillaume Guillot, deputy mayor of Arcueil.
"Then the idea was to have a stele that would have a plaque on it, which is the recognition of slavery. There was work done, especially with young people, to decide what phrase we should write on the stele.
"In the end, it was narrowed down to the first article of the 2001 law, which recognises slavery as a crime against humanity by France," he said. "We added this phrase from [French Martiniquais writer] Édouard Glissant about memory: Oblivion offends, and memory, when it is shared, abolishes this offence."
Why descendants of France’s slaves are still fighting for their memory
A place of reflection
For the last 10 years, the town of Arcueil had held a commemoration every 10 May at the town's war memorial.
"There was no specific place of reflection dedicated to this, and it seemed important to create a place and something that would also endure," added Guillot.
Damarys Maa Marchand, a women's rights activist and member of the collective Les Chemins de la Mémoire ("the paths of memory") said of the town's new memorial site: "At times when I need some strength, I will come here to reflect."
"We’ve been to places where other histories of France were commemorated," she added. "We said, one day it will happen that we will have a place."
The Foundation for the Remembrance of Slavery will now register this new memorial site.
France first abolished slavery in its colonies in 1794, during the French Revolution. Napoleon Bonaparte then reinstated it in 1802.
After years of pressure from abolitionists and uprisings in the colonies – notably in Martinique and Guadeloupe – slavery was permanently abolished in 1848.
► This report was adapted from RFI's podcast Reportage en France, produced by Sylvie Koffi.
