The Prime Minister, with the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet laid a wreath in the Luxembourg Gardens, near the sculpture “The cry, the writing” by Fabrice Hybert, depicting chains of slaves.
Elisabeth Borne celebrated this Wednesday near the Senate the National Day of the memories of the slave trade, slavery and their abolitions, before flying to Reunion for her first visit to Overseas where this question remains sensitive.
This Day is organized on May 10, the anniversary of the Taubira law of 2001 which recognized slavery as a crime against humanity.
“Commemorating this tragic episode in our history is essential in building a united nation, scarred by past crimes,” Reunion MP Karine Lebon wrote on Twitter.
Travel to Reunion until Saturday
Elisabeth Borne is making her first trip overseas from Thursday to Saturday to Reunion, to “understand” and “respond” to the “daily concerns” of the inhabitants and to continue the work of reviving the executive after the pension reform.
Young people from France and overseas, including the winners of the national Flame of Equality competition, on the memory of slavery, participated in the ceremony on Wednesday in Paris, as well as the Haitian singer James Germain, and the choir of little singing schoolchildren from Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis).
The ceremony also aimed to pay tribute to Toussaint Louverture, a former slave who became a general of the Republic, who died 220 years ago. Emmanuel Macron had chosen to celebrate April 27, 1848, which corresponds to Victor Schoelcher’s decree abolishing slavery in France, taken 175 years ago.
He had gone on this date to the Château de Joux, in the Doubs, where Toussaint Louverture was locked up the last months of his life from 1802 to 1803.
