France votes to repeal the Code Noir — 177 years too late
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The Code Noir is a 1685 royal decree, signed by King Louis XIV, that governed slavery across France's colonial empire and legally classified approximately 1.4 million enslaved Africans as 'movable property' — a law France's National Assembly voted 254-0 to repeal on 28 May 2025, more than 340 years after its signing and 177 years after France abolished slavery, though the bill still requires Senate approval to become law.
On 28 May 2025, France's National Assembly voted 254-0 to repeal the Code Noir — the 1685 royal decree signed by King Louis XIV that codified slavery across France's colonial empire and declared enslaved people 'movable property'. The unanimous vote, a rare moment of unity in a deeply divided parliament, was introduced by Max Mathiasin, a centrist MP from Guadeloupe and the great-great-grandson of enslaved people. The bill still requires Senate approval before becoming law.
The Code Noir's 60 articles governed every dimension of enslaved life — first in the French Caribbean colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), and later extended to French Guiana, Louisiana and Réunion. Article 44 classified enslaved people as 'movable property' that could be bought, sold, mortgaged or inherited. France trafficked approximately 1.4 million Africans across the Atlantic — the third-largest slave trade of any European power.
Though the Code Noir lost legal force when France abolished slavery in 1848, it was never formally struck from the statute books — until now.
In a separate but related legislative move, France's parliament also passed a law formally acknowledging state responsibility for the chlordecone pesticide scandal in Guadeloupe and Martinique. The toxic insecticide was used on banana plantations from 1972 to 1993 — three years after France banned it on the mainland.
More than 90% of adults on both islands carry traces of chlordecone in their blood, according to Santé Publique France. The law sets decontamination goals and a framework for future compensation, but stops short of establishing a full reparations scheme.
• National Assembly voted 254-0 on 28 May 2025 to repeal the Code Noir • Code Noir was signed by King Louis XIV in 1685 and governed slavery across France's colonial empire • The decree's 60 articles classified enslaved people as 'movable property' under Article 44 • France trafficked approximately 1.4 million Africans — the third-largest slave trade in Europe • The Code Noir covered Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Domingue (Haiti), French Guiana, Louisiana and Réunion • The law lost legal force in 1848 but was never formally repealed until now • Bill introduced by Guadeloupe MP Max Mathiasin, great-great-grandson of enslaved people • Senate approval still required for the repeal to become law • Separate law passed acknowledging state responsibility for chlordecone contamination in Guadeloupe and Martinique • Chlordecone was banned on mainland France in 1990 but continued in the Caribbean until 1993 • Over 90% of adults in Guadeloupe and Martinique carry traces of chlordecone in their blood
France’s Code Noir Repeal By The Numbers
For the 1.9 million French citizens living in Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Réunion — most descended from enslaved people — the Code Noir repeal and the chlordecone responsibility law represent a shift in official language, but campaigners stress that acknowledgment must translate into structural change.
Unemployment in France's overseas departments runs at roughly double the mainland rate, wealth and commercial power remain concentrated in few hands, and the islands' heavily contaminated soil may carry chlordecone for up to 600 years.
"More than 90% of adults in Guadeloupe and Martinique are estimated to carry traces of chlordecone in their blood, and the chemical can contaminate soil for up to 600 years."
— Santé Publique France (French national public health agency) and scientific research cited across multiple sources
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Viewpoint: Caribbean lawmakers and activists argue the 254-0 vote, while historic, changes nothing on the ground. Steevy Gustave, the Martinique MP whose ancestors were enslaved, wept in the National Assembly as he declared: "No vote alone can repair centuries of shattered lives. We are not descendants of slaves — we are descendants of human beings born free, then reduced to the worst." For campaigners in Guadeloupe and Martinique, where over 90% of adults carry chlordecone in their bloodstreams and soil contamination may persist for 600 years, symbolic legislation rings hollow without a fully funded reparatory framework and enforceable decontamination targets.
Viewpoint: Max Mathiasin, the Guadeloupe MP who introduced the repeal bill and is himself a great-great-grandson of enslaved people, deliberately excluded reparations from the legislation to secure unanimous passage. "This was made by human beings, against human beings," he said. For Mathiasin, a 254-0 vote in a deeply fractured parliament — formally erasing a decree that classified his ancestors as movable property — was itself a substantive act of justice, not merely a gesture, and a necessary foundation for what must follow.
Viewpoint: The chlordecone scandal illustrates how colonial-era economic power outlasted colonial law. Banana plantation owners in Martinique and Guadeloupe secured repeated government exemptions after France banned the pesticide on the mainland in 1990 — allowing its use to continue in the Caribbean until 1993. Elie Califer, the Guadeloupe Socialist MP who introduced the chlordecone responsibility law, welcomed parliament's acknowledgment but warned: "It will still be necessary to fight to obtain full compensation." Critics note that neither law yet delivers a dedicated victims' fund or binding reparations.
France's unanimous vote to repeal the Code Noir and its parliamentary acknowledgment of state responsibility for the chlordecone crisis are steps that Caribbean people have waited far too long to see. They matter. Words from a parliament carry weight, and forcing France to put its silence on the record as 'a form of offence' — Macron's own phrase — is not nothing.
The Code Noir did not emerge from nowhere. Signed at Versailles in 1685 by King Louis XIV, it was a deliberate legal architecture — 60 articles designed to strip humanity from approximately 1.4 million Africans trafficked to French Caribbean colonies including Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue, the territory that would become Haiti. France was the third-largest European slave trader, after Portugal and Britain. The Code's reach was absolute: Article 44 classified enslaved people as 'movable property', bought, sold and inherited like furniture. Those who fled faced branding, mutilation and death.
When France abolished slavery in 1848, the Code Noir lost its legal force — but was never formally struck from the books. It sat there, unrepealed, for another 177 years. France did not formally recognise slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity until 2001, under the Taubira law. Now, in 2025, the National Assembly has voted 254-0 to finally erase it — introduced by Max Mathiasin, a Guadeloupe MP and great-great-grandson of enslaved people. Senate approval is still required.
But the Caribbean has heard fine speeches before. What Guadeloupe and Martinique need is not a better apology but decontaminated land, accessible healthcare, genuine economic equity and a reparatory framework that they help design — not one handed down from Paris. The chlordecone scandal alone — 90% of a population poisoned, soil contaminated for potentially 600 years — demands urgent, funded, enforceable commitments, not inspection missions and framework laws.
France has the models: the Netherlands' formal apology and reparatory mechanisms, and Caricom's 10-point plan, are both on the table. The question is political will. Commemoration without repair is performance. The Caribbean is owed substance.
Some people from the French islands in the Caribbean may wonder if the benefits of being a part of France are greater than the disadvantages - when the Code Noir continued to exist without regard to how it felt to be treated as if they were not equal to French citizens from the mainland, and where their lives and health were not considered to be equal to the lives and health of French citizens on the mainland.
Independence movements may not be strong - but may now strengthen - as they consider whether or not they could treat themselves with greater dignity than has so far been the case.
But other territories like Puerto Rico, the US and British Virgin Islands, Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, the Cayman Islands, Anguilla, the Turks and Caicos and others, also seem to be content to remain as far flung parts of larger states. And it is likely that some of those islands will attain independence well before Martinique and Guadeloupe and French Guiana ever do.
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