Commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade

May 10 is the « national day of memories of the slave trade, slavery and their abolition » since 2006, decided by President Chirac on the proposal of the committee for the memory of slavery.

The other important dates linked to the abolition of slavery are:

• April 27, 1848: decree abolishing slavery in the French colonies.
• May 23, 1998: Silent march of several thousand descendants of slaves in the streets of Paris to honor the memory and the martyrdom of their ancestors.
• May 10, 2001: adoption of the law « recognizing trafficking and slavery as a crime against humanity », promulgated on May 21. (Taubira Law 1)
• April 12, 2005: May 10 is proposed by the Committee for the Memory of Slavery as the date of annual commemoration in France of the abolition of slavery.
• January 30, 2006: the date of May 10 is used to commemorate in metropolitan France the abolition of slavery.
• Jacques Chirac entrusts the Martinican writer Edouard Glissant with the presidency of a prefiguration mission of a National Center devoted to the slave trade and slavery.
• March 25, 2015: International Day to Commemorate the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, an opportunity to pay tribute to those who suffered and died as a result of the treatment linked to slavery while raising public awareness of the risks of racism. A permanent memorial, « The Ark of the Return » built by the American architect of Haitian origin Rodney Leona, was erected at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York.

For more than 400 years, over 15 million people who came from Africa through the slave trade were sold across the Atlantic. Women, who represented a third, were the most severely affected by their forced labor in difficult conditions, to which was added discrimination and sexual exploitation.

France was the first state to declare the slave trade and slavery a crime against humanity and to declare a national day of commemoration.

This year, despite the confinement, the commemoration of the National Day of Memories of the slave trade and their abolition took place this Sunday, May 10 at the Jardin du Luxembourg (75006), in a small committee but in the presence of the Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, President of the Senate Gérard Larcher, Overseas Minister Annick Girardin and Director of the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery, Dominique Taffin.

Still in Paris, Anne Hidalgo laid a wreath at the foot of the statue « Les Fers » by Driss Sans-Arciset, in the Solitude Garden, place du Général Catroux (75017) at 4 p.m. during a closed-door ceremony in the presence by Edouard Philippe, Annick Girardin, Jean- Marc Ayrault, Georges Pau-Langevin (MP for Paris), Geoffroy Boulard (mayor of the 17th arrondissement) and Jacques Martial (former president of the ACTe Memorial), Claude Ribbe (president of the association of Friends of General Dumas) .An official ceremony was organized in a select committee (no more than 10 people) in all the prefecture capitals and in each overseas department, but also in wreath laying.

The Foundation for the Memory of Slavery has also decided to initiate and support a month of digital commemorations by proposing from April 27 to June 10, the « Month of Memories 2020 », a commemorative, participative and interactive program to evoke throughout the territory, the history of slavery and its contemporary, cultural, social and human legacies linked to all actors, whether institutional or from civil society.

We will be able to celebrate on the internet by sharing during this month on: #cestnotrehistoire (exceptional live broadcast on the internet presented on May 10 by Claudy Siar and Bintou Simporé and bringing together dozens of guests including Christiane Taubira and other personalities in the film -manifest and videos), #PaOubliye, #FME; we can also find each national or local day: # 10May, # 22May, # 23May, # 27May, # 28May, # 10June. The theme chosen this year is: « The missing page, to symbolize the ignorance that still surrounds slavery and the memory of our colonial past among the general public ». It will also be possible to rediscover the imprint of colonial slavery on heritage by following #PatrimourDechaines.

Desired by François Hollande in 2016, endorsed by President Macron in 2017, the Foundation for the memory of slavery was created in November 2019. Half of the French funding, with a budget of 2 million euros, it aims to educate, inform and reflect, by answering the basic question of « why there are blacks in France », it follows the CPMHE (Committee for the Memory and History of Slavery) chaired today today by former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, in charge of these commemorations.

« The Foundation wants to help understand the French global identity stemming from four centuries of relations between France, Africa, America, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean and thus participate in national cohesion by showing how overseas have enriched the culture and how the resistance to oppression and the fight for abolition have shaped the values ​​of France.  »

Projects in culture, research and education are on the program for the future, a big party to celebrate in 2021 the twenty years of the Taubira law will be organized by the platform led by Dominique Taffin, general curator of heritage, former director of the Archives of Martinique, the construction of a memorial to the victims of slavery is planned at the Tuileries, piloted by the Ministry of Culture.

The national day in tribute to the victims of the slavery of May 23 will take place in Saint-Denis but reduced to follow health rules. A digital event relating to the Flame of Equality competition, set up with the help of the French National Education Department, will highlight the projects of 3 winning classes at the national level (online ranking on May 10). This competition rewards for the first time since 2015 on the whole territory (at national and regional level), laureates (pupils and teachers) having carried out a project on the history of slavery and its legacies, laureates.

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