00:00French lawmakers have taken a historic step in confronting their country's slave trading past in Paris.
00:07On Thursday, the National Assembly unanimously voted to repeal the Côte d'Oir,
00:11a 17th-century decree that once defined enslaved Africans as property
00:16and laid out brutal rules for life and punishment in France colonies.
00:21This bill does not claim to erase history, nor to single-handedly heal the wounds of history.
00:30Twenty-five years after the Taubira Law, which recognizes the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity,
00:40this bill aims to take a new step to make a powerful act of remembrance, justice and recognition
00:48by formally repealing the Côte d'Oir and all the texts that stem from it.
00:55Because to be born from the matrix of crime is something teasing.
01:01Among black French citizens here and from the Caribbean island of Martinique,
01:06a former French colony which became a French department in 1946,
01:10the reactions mix recognition and delusionment.
01:13For Rodrigue Petiton, the head of a movement for the protection of Afro-Caribbean people and resources,
01:20this vote reveals a sad reality.
01:24It is truly absurd to only consider the repeal or cancellation of the black code in 2026,
01:31but it also reveals a sad reality given our history.
01:34The beckers, which is wealthy white descendants of colonies and slave owners
01:38who dominated Martinique's economy,
01:41were compensated when slavery was abolished and black people were not.
01:45This shows that the abolition of the slavery never truly happened for us.
01:49It was all just talks.
01:50It demonstrates that those who have always complained about it are still feeling enslaved are right,
01:57because even the laws don't follow the promises.
02:01Slavery was abolished in France in 1848,
02:03which had a significant slave trade,
02:06shipping more than one million Africans to colonies in the Americas and other regions.
02:12Slavery was abolished in France in 1848,
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