The unanimous vote closes a legal loophole that survived the 1865 abolition of slavery in France.
French lawmakers on Thursday voted unanimously to repeal the Code Noir, a colonial-era law that classified enslaved people as property, in a landmark reckoning with one of the darkest pillars of France’s imperial past.
Although France abolished slavery in 1848, the 17th-century text itself was never formally struck from the books until Thursday’s vote.
All of the 254 lawmakers present in the National Assembly backed the repeal in a rare display of cross-party unity. The bill was introduced by Guadeloupean MP Max Mathiasin and drew support from lawmakers from across the political spectrum.
Originally signed by King Louis XIV in 1685, the Code Noir regulated slavery across France’s colonies and reduced enslaved people to “movable property” that could be bought and sold. The related decrees also imposed brutal punishments on escaped slaves, including branding, mutilation and execution.
The vote comes 25 years after France passed the so-called Taubira law recognizing slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity — a pivotal moment in the country’s reckoning with its colonial history. Mathiasin called Thursday’s repeal “a powerful act of remembrance, justice and recognition,” while acknowledging it would not “heal the wounds of history alone.”
President Emmanuel Macron backed the measure last week, saying the Code Noir’s 60 articles “should never have survived the abolition of slavery.”
“The silence, even the indifference, that we have maintained for nearly two centuries toward this Code Noir is no longer an oversight,” Macron said. “It has become a form of offense.”
France operated the world’s third-largest slave trade, forcibly transporting roughly 1.4 million Africans to plantations, helping enrich port cities such as Nantes and Bordeaux.