Code Noir abolished: French MPs repeal slavery laws | allfacts360
French Parliament Unanimously Abolishes the ‘Code Noir,’ 178 Years After Slavery’s End
Paris, 28 May 2026
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Summary
French lawmakers have voted unanimously to formally repeal the Code Noir and all related colonial slavery legislation. The symbolic move comes 178 years after the abolition of slavery and amid renewed calls for reparative justice.
Paris, 28 May 2026
The French National Assembly voted unanimously on Thursday to formally abrogate the Code Noir and all texts that regulated slavery in the French colonies, 178 years after the institution was abolished.
A Legislative Fossil Finally Buried
The vote at the Palais Bourbon — whose forecourt features a statue of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the chief architect of the 1685 edict — revokes royal ordinances dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. The Code Noir had long been considered a “legislative fossil,” a law that was obsolete but had never been formally struck from the books.
“The time has come to wash ourselves of the ignominy that is the Code Noir in the name of reparative justice,” said Laurent Panifous, president of the Liot parliamentary group, who had officially requested the abolition on 13 May 2025. “If one might believe that the 1848 decree abolishing slavery abrogated the Code Noir, it did nothing of the sort. No text has formally abolished it,” the Ariège deputy insisted.
The Code Noir, first signed in its definitive version by Colbert’s son, the Marquis de Seignelay, in 1685, was actually a collection of laws governing the slave phase of French colonization. “It is a compendium of laws concerning the slave phase of French colonization. There are texts that regulate slavery, the condition of the slave, but also the slave trade, colonial commerce, and the presence of Black people in France,” summarized historian Frédéric Régent of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Under the edict, enslaved people were legally classified as “movable property” that could be bought and sold by a master like any other good. Yet the status was ambiguous: “The person is considered first as an object of property. You can sell and rent him, but he is also considered a human being, because he is allowed to marry, he is required to receive a minimum of food, and his emancipation is permitted,” explained historian Bruno Maillard of the University of Paris-Est Créteil.
The Ambiguous Status of the Enslaved
The code also prescribed corporal punishment. Article 38 stated that a fugitive slave who had been on the run for a month would have his ears cut off and be branded with a fleur-de-lys; a second offense meant the hamstring would be cut; a third was punishable by death. “Masters thus had a right of domestic justice over their slave. They could use the whip, chain them, and lock them up,” Régent noted, adding that “the right of mutilation, of life and death, belonged only to royal justice.”
Several left-wing deputies recalled that in 1848 it was the slaveholders who were compensated by the Republic, not the former slaves. “This vote must open a project, not close it,” said Martinique deputy Jiovanny William of the Socialist Party. “Beyond the essential work of memory, can there be forgiveness without reparation?”
The debate highlighted persistent inequalities between overseas territories and mainland France, as well as discrimination faced by Black people. “I am thinking of the chlordecone scandal in the Antilles, of access to water in Mayotte … I am thinking of the explosion of Negrophobia,” listed La France Insoumise deputy Nadège Abomangoli, also citing “the racist dehumanization” of a fellow left-wing mayor.
Calls for Reparation Beyond Symbolism
One article of the adopted text requires the government to submit a report on colonial law and its long-term effects, as well as on the place given to the history of slavery in school curricula. “We will be vigilant regarding the announcements that are to come soon,” William added.
On 8 May, the president of the Territorial Collectivity of Martinique, Serge Letchimy, wrote to President Emmanuel Macron urging the state to embark on the path of “reparation,” recommending the creation of an “ad hoc commission” to determine its concrete modalities. Macron is also expected to provide an update on the memory work launched last year to assess “the price” of freedom imposed by France on Haiti — the enormous financial indemnity demanded from the former colony in exchange for recognition of its independence two hundred years ago.
A presidential adviser specified, however, that the commission of historians established by Macron in April 2025 had not yet delivered its conclusions.
Legally, the abrogation changes nothing. “Juridically, this abrogation changes nothing. It is simply to mark the occasion and to show that France officially repeals these texts,” said constitutional law professor Jean-Éric Gicquel of the University of Rennes 1. The Code Noir had been de facto abolished with the end of slavery, but remained a “legislative fossil.”
A Symbolic Act with No Legal Effect
The first abolition of slavery, decided by the Revolution on 4 February 1794, abrogated the Code Noir ipso facto, but Napoleon Bonaparte’s decision to reinstate slavery in 1802 restored its full force in Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, and La Réunion until the definitive abolition of 1848. France formally recognized slavery as a crime against humanity in 2001 through the so-called Taubira law.
For Bruno Maillard, the real question remains material and financial reparation. “The real question is that of financial and material reparation,” he said, pointing to the alarming economic and social situation in French overseas territories: “The unemployment rate, the housing and public health problems mean that these are not territories like the others.”
The abolition of the Code Noir was described as a “significant symbolic and political gesture” by Max Mathiasin, the deputy from Guadeloupe who introduced the bill. “My great-grandmother Bébelle was the granddaughter of Ambroise Zerambe, who was registered as slave number 336. Today one of her descendants stands here, as a deputy of the Republic,” he said, his voice heavy with emotion.
Questions & Answers
What was the Code Noir?
The Code Noir was a collection of royal ordinances, first signed in 1685, that regulated slavery in the French colonies. It defined enslaved people as movable property while also prescribing brutal physical punishments for escape attempts.
Why did the French Parliament abolish the Code Noir now?
Although slavery was abolished in 1848, the Code Noir had never been formally repealed and remained a symbolic legislative fossil. The unanimous vote responds to long-standing demands for a formal repudiation of this colonial legal framework.
What did deputy Max Mathiasin say about the vote?
Max Mathiasin, the deputy from Guadeloupe who introduced the bill, called the abolition a “significant symbolic and political gesture.” He shared that his great-grandmother was the granddaughter of a man registered as slave number 336, and that a descendant now stood in the Assembly as a deputy of the Republic.
