The court’s decision Wednesday noted that no individual presented evidence showing that they had “individually suffered” any harm from the crimes to which their ancestors were subjected.
Slavery was abolished in France in 1848, but before that there was a major slave trade that sent more than 1 million Africans to colonies in the Americas. The International Movement for Reparations and two other groups launched reparations efforts in 2005. French courts have repeatedly rejected their requests, but the European Court of Human Rights kept their efforts alive by making their claims admissible.
In an email, a lawyer handling the reparations case, Patrice Spinosi, called the court’s decision “a new missed opportunity, but the fight continues.” Spinosi added that the groups would again approach the European Court of Human Rights for a new appeal.
The issue of reparations is widely debated throughout the Caribbean, where colonial powers including Britain and France have brought some 5 million slaves and forced them to work on sugar plantations and other fields in brutal conditions.
In 2022, an appeals court in Martinique, which is an overseas department of France, rejected the groups’ request, noting that there is a statute of limitations for such crimes and that a French law already allows the implementation of certain measures aimed at “bring a memorial contribution to the recognition of slavery and the slave trade” and that it is not for the judiciary to decide whether such measures are sufficient.
