France's National Assembly votes unanimously to repeal the 1685 'Code Noir' slavery law, 178 years after abolition

A unanimous vote to close a historical loophole

The French National Assembly voted unanimously on Thursday to formally repeal the 'Code Noir' (Black Code), a royal edict signed by King Louis XIV in 1685 that provided a legal framework for slavery in France's colonial empire. All 254 lawmakers present backed the bill, a rare show of cross-party unity in a bitterly divided parliament. The legislation, introduced by Guadeloupean MP Max Mathiasin, now moves to the Senate, where its approval is considered a formality. Although France definitively abolished slavery in 1848, the Code Noir itself was never formally struck from the books, surviving as a legal anomaly for 178 years.

The Code Noir should never have survived the abolition of slavery. The silence, even the indifference, that we have maintained for nearly two centuries towards this Code Noir is no longer an oversight. It has become a form of offence.

The monstrous legal text

The Code Noir's 60 articles governed the lives of enslaved people across French colonies, first in the Caribbean—Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint-Domingue (now Haiti)—and later in French Guiana, Louisiana, and Indian Ocean islands like Réunion and Mauritius. Article 44 declared enslaved people "movable property," allowing masters to buy, sell, mortgage, or bequeath them like land or furniture. Article 28 stated they could "own nothing that does not belong to their master." The code prescribed brutal punishments for those who resisted: a first escape attempt meant having ears cut off and a shoulder branded with a fleur-de-lis; a second meant a severed leg tendon; a third was punishable by death.

The most monstrous legal text of modern times.

The scale of French colonial slavery

France was the third-largest slave-trading European power, after Portugal and Britain, shipping an estimated 1.4 million Africans across the Atlantic in chains. Most were forced to work on sugar cane plantations, feeding boiling houses where syrup was reduced over open fires, alongside coffee, cotton, and indigo production. The work was so deadly that deaths surpassed births, with planters simply replacing the dead with fresh shiploads of Africans. By 1789, Saint-Domingue alone held around 500,000 enslaved people—more than any other Caribbean colony—and was considered the richest colony on earth.

Emotional debate and personal reckoning

The parliamentary debate was charged with emotion. Steevy Gustave, a Greens MP from Martinique, fought back tears as he addressed the chamber. "No vote alone can repair centuries of shattered lives," he said. "We are not descendants of slaves, we are descendants of human beings born free, then reduced to the worst—reduced to slavery." He spoke of his great-grandmother, Mama Bebelle, the granddaughter of an African man enslaved under the number 336. Max Mathiasin, the bill's sponsor from Guadeloupe, admitted he had never been able to read the original texts in full, calling the vote "a way of restoring our ancestors, restoring our humanity" and living up to the Republic's promise of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

As the great-great-grandson of people who were enslaved, I had never been able to read it in full. This was made by human beings, against human beings.

What the repeal means going forward

If adopted by the Senate, the bill will require the French government to report to parliament on the consequences of colonial law and the lasting effects of slavery on racism and discrimination in French society, as well as how the history of slavery is taught in schools. The vote has also reignited the debate on reparations. President Macron acknowledged the issue last week, saying it is one "we must not refuse" but cautioned that the country "must not make false promises." The repeal is seen as a powerful act of remembrance, justice, and recognition, though lawmakers stressed it does not claim to erase history or single-handedly heal its wounds.