France yesterday commemorated for the first time its abolition of slavery more than 150 years ago, which marked the formal end of a practice it has since branded a crime against humanity.
President Jacques Chirac was to attend a ceremony in the Luxembourg Gardens in the center of Paris with his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin.
There, he was to inaugurate a temporary work by a French artist featuring a bamboo arch dotted with photographs of people of different backgrounds, which is to be replaced later by a monument.
The Pantheon, a neo-classic building nearby that houses the remains of famous French figures, was to provide free entry to the tombs of those who fought against slavery.
Chief among them was Victor Schoelcher, an abolitionist in the 19th century who argued against France's practice of slavery in its West Indies islands to produce sugar.
Schoelcher's struggle contributed to a decree issued on April 27, 1848, which definitively abolished slavery in France and its colonies and returned freedom to some 260,000 slaves.
Several attempts have been made to establish a nationwide commemoration to mark abolition, but it was only in January that Chirac declared May 10 as the annual day to remember victims of slavery.
Crime against humanity
"Slavery fed racism. When people tried to justify the unjustifiable, that was when the first racist theories were elaborated. Racism is a crime of the heart and the spirit ... which is why the memory of slavery remains a living wound for some of our fellow citizens," he said at the time.
May 10 was chosen because it was the day in 2001 that the legislature approved a law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity.
France's overseas territories, which have a mainly black population, already have annual slavery memorial days.
Colonial role
Chirac's decision to declare a slavery abolition day followed a bitter row over a law passed last year which said France's colonial past had a "positive role" on its former possessions. That part of the law was eventually scrapped by France's constitutional council.
Questions over slavery and France's colonial history have become especially sensitive in the country since the weeks of rioting last November among mainly black and Arab youths.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS