[Many thanks to Suzanne Dracius for bringing “this item to our attention.] The full title of this article by AFP’s Charles Delouche-Bertolasi (for Libération) is “Enfin! Esclavage: l’abolition du Code noir votée à l’unanimité en commission à l’Assemblée nationale” [Finally! Slavery: the abolition of the “Black Code” unanimously passed in law commission at the National Assembly].
Today (Wednesday, May 20, 2026) members of the Law Commission unanimously voted in favor of abolishing the “Code Noir.” Delouche-Bertolasi writes “The repeal of all laws regulating slavery has passed its first parliamentary hurdle but still needs to be voted on in the lower house and then in the Senate. Emmanuel Macron is expected to address the issue on Thursday.”
Since 1848, and despite the decree abolishing slavery, the text remains in French law. The members of the Law Commission unanimously voted in favor of abolishing the “Code Noir” on Wednesday, May 20. This vote comes on the eve of a speech by Emmanuel Macron, scheduled for Thursday evening, May 21, to mark the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the law recognizing the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity. The President will be accompanied by former Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira, who drafted the legislation at the time.
This first step, taken at the National Assembly committee, will be followed on Thursday, May 28, by the plenary session’s examination of the bill proposed by rapporteur Max Mathiasin, a member of parliament from Guadeloupe. The text, co-signed by a range of parliamentarians from La France Insoumise (LFI) to Les Républicains (LR), will be studied during the day reserved— the parliamentary slot —for the centrist LIOT group. It will then continue its parliamentary journey in the Senate.
The “Code Noir,” a name given to a set of royal edicts dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, “organized the denial of the humanity of women, men, and children reduced to slavery because of their origin and skin color, by considering them as chattel and subjecting them to extremely violent punishments,” recalled MP Max Mathiasin this Wednesday.
“In the Shadow of Our Law”
Despite the abolition of slavery in 1794 and then in 1848, these texts “remain present in the shadow of our law,” because “even if they are no longer applied,” they have never been “expressly repealed by the legislature,” added the MP from the LIOT group.
The committee debates highlighted the legacies of France’s history of slavery and colonialism, still visible through the persistent inequalities between the overseas territories and mainland France, as well as the discrimination suffered by Black people.
“I’m thinking of the chlordecone scandal in the French West Indies, access to water in Mayotte […].” “I am thinking of the exploding négrophobie [Afrophobia], of hunting Black people in the Creuse [department], of the racist dehumanization of the rebellious mayor Bally Bagayoko on CNews and elsewhere,” added LFI MP Nadège Abomangoli.
To those who might still “doubt” that “this legislation is having an effect today,” Martinique MP Béatrice Bellay (Socialist Party) testified that it took her a year and a half to find an apartment to rent in Paris, despite her status as a member of parliament.
One article of the text stipulates that the government must submit a report on colonial law and its long-term effects, as well as on the place given to the history of slavery in school curricula.
Excerpts translated by Ivette Romero. Read complete article (in French) at https://www.liberation.fr/politique/esclavage-labolition-du-code-noir-vote-a-lunanimite-en-commission-a-lassemblee-nationale / (Subscription may be necessary.)
[Photo above by Julien De Rosa /AFP: MP (LIOT) Max Mathiasin, a member of parliament from Guadeloupe, rapporteur of the bill, on November 19, 2025, at the National Assembly.]
[Many thanks to Suzanne Dracius for bringing “this item to our attention.] The full title of this article by AFP’s Charles Delouche-Bertolasi (for Libération) is “Enfin! Esclavage: l’abolition du Code noir votée à l’unanimité en commission à l’Assemblée nationale” [Finally! Slavery: the abolition of the “Black Code” unanimously passed in law commission at the National Assembly]. Today