France’s Parliament repeals 1685 Code Noir in symbolic slavery vote

France's Parliament unanimously gave final approval Tuesday to a bill repealing the 1685 Code Noir and related colonial slavery laws, broadcaster RFI reported in an Oct. 21 article.

The vote formally removes texts that governed colonial slavery for 163 years before abolition in 1848, and comes 25 years after the 2001 Taubira law recognised slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity.

The bill, proposed by Guadeloupe MP Max Mathiasin, passed the National Assembly unanimously in May before receiving unanimous backing from senators on Tuesday.

Overseas Territories Minister Naïma Moutchou, speaking before the Senate vote, said the repeal would remove an unacceptable legal remnant. “The Code Noir [Black Code] organised and legitimised slavery. It has no place in our legal system, not even as a relic.

This text belongs to our history, not our legislation,” she told AFP.

The targeted material includes the 1685 royal edict and later rules tied to France's colonial slave system. The Code Noir treated enslaved people as “movable property,” a legal status that allowed owners to buy and sell them.

The bill also instructs the government to prepare a report on the legacy of colonial law and its continuing effects, including racism and the treatment of slavery history in school curricula.

The debate exposed disagreement over how broad the repeal should be. Senator Evelyne Corbière Naminzo, who represents Réunion and sits with the Communist group, said before the vote that legislation used in the Indian Ocean should be named explicitly and given the “same weight” as the Code Noir applied in the French Antilles.

“When we talk about a symbol, we must not leave anyone out,” Corbière Naminzo told AFP.

Senate rapporteur Louis Vogel defended the bill's wider wording, saying it was designed to cover all relevant texts without creating omissions through a list. “If we start drawing up a list, we are bound to leave some things out,” he told AFP, adding that a symbolic law should “establish a principle”.

The repeal does not address reparations, a demand raised in several French overseas territories. During the National Assembly debate, lawmakers noted that France compensated former slave owners after abolition for the loss of what the law had treated as property, while emancipated people received no compensation.

The government report required by the bill may examine links between colonial law, racism and inequality between overseas territories and mainland France. The legislation itself contains no compensation or reparations measures.