The French National Assembly voted 254-0 on Thursday to repeal the Code Noir, or Black Code, a colonial-era decree from 1685 that classified enslaved people as property and allowed them to be worked, beaten, sold and killed across France's overseas territories. The unanimous vote marks the first formal removal of the law from the French statute books since slavery was abolished in 1848.
The code, signed by King Louis XIV, consisted of 60 articles governing the treatment of enslaved people in French colonies. Article 44 declared the enslaved "movable property" that a master could acquire like real estate. Those who fled faced branding, amputation of their ears and even death. The testimony of an enslaved person held no legal weight.
Although the code lost all authority when France abolished slavery in 1848, it was never formally annulled. For nearly two centuries, the law remained on the books—a historical artifact that activists say reflects deeper structural inequities facing France's overseas departments, where most residents are descended from the enslaved.
President Emmanuel Macron said last week that the code's survival "should never have happened" after abolition. "The silence, even the indifference, that we have maintained for nearly two centuries toward this Black Code is no longer an oversight," he said. "It has become a form of offense." Macron stopped short of issuing a formal apology.
What the Right Is Saying
Conservative voices have largely supported the repeal while cautioning against framing it as part of broader reparations claims. The vote passed without opposition in the National Assembly, reflecting cross-party consensus on removing obsolete colonial legislation from French law.
Pierre-Yves Bocquet, deputy director of the Foundation for Memory of Slavery chaired by former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, called the code "the birthplace of France's colonial exception"—the principle that Republican rights could be suspended for those under French rule. He argued the symbolic repeal does not address ongoing inequalities in overseas territories.
Max Relouzat, 81, president of the Association for Memory of Slaveries, questioned whether removing the law addressed systemic racism. "Under the cover of departmentalization, a colonial system was maintained," he said. "If the overseas departments are part of France, why is there a ministry for the overseas?"
Some commentators noted Macron's awkward timing in addressing historical justice while simultaneously facing criticism for his conduct at an Africa Forward Summit in Kenya, where opposition lawmaker Danièle Obono said he "can't help but behave like a colonizer."
What the Left Is Saying
Progressive lawmakers and descendants of enslaved people welcomed the repeal while emphasizing its limitations. Steevy Gustave, a National Assembly member from Martinique, broke down in tears during Thursday's debate. "We are not descendants of slaves," he said. "We are descendants of human beings born free, then reduced to the worst—reduced to slavery." He argued that no vote alone could repair centuries of harm.
Max Mathiasin, the lawmaker from Guadeloupe who proposed the repeal, called it "a way of restoring our ancestors, restoring our humanity." But he noted persistent inequalities in French governance. "In Guadeloupe," he said, "in the most important positions, in the structures of the state, they are white."
Florence Alexis, a slavery expert whose father was the Haitian writer Jacques Stephen Alexis, argued that racism is slavery's true legacy, not any single edict. She pointed to France's 2001 Taubira law—which recognized the slave trade as a crime against humanity—as more significant than Thursday's vote. "That is what changed my life," she said.
Muriel Jean-Baptiste, a Paris-born nurse whose parents are from Martinique, expressed frustration at the delay. "A law that treated Black people as property was left sitting there for nearly two centuries," she said.
What the Numbers Show
France operated the third-largest transatlantic slave trade, transporting approximately 1.4 million Africans to Caribbean and American plantations between the 17th and 19th centuries. The wealth from sugar plantations in colonies including Saint-Domingue helped build French port cities of Nantes and Bordeaux.
The four oldest French overseas departments—Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Réunion—have a combined population of roughly 1.9 million people who are full French citizens. These territories became French departments in 1946 but remain among France's poorest regions: unemployment runs approximately double the mainland rate, and more than three-quarters of households in Mayotte live below the national poverty line.
The U.N. General Assembly voted 123-3 with 52 abstentions to call the trans-Atlantic slave trade "the gravest crime against humanity"—France abstained from that vote two months before Thursday's parliamentary action.
The Bottom Line
Thursday's unanimous vote formally ends nearly two centuries of an obsolete law remaining on French books, a symbolic but largely ceremonial gesture since the code had no legal force since 1848. The debate exposed deeper tensions over France's treatment of its overseas departments and whether formal acknowledgments of historical injustice translate into material change for their predominantly Black populations.
Macron has floated the idea of reparations without committing funds, defining repair primarily as "truth-telling, education and historical work." Critics argue that without addressing systemic inequalities in employment, representation and economic opportunity, removing the code is an empty gesture. The bill moves to the French Senate before becoming law.