European NEWS:
UNIPA NEWS HAITI
May 29, 2026
More than 340 years after its creation, the infamous “Code Noir” has officially been removed from French law. On Thursday, May 28, 2026, the French National Assembly unanimously voted to abolish the colonial legal text that once regulated and justified slavery in the French colonies, including Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti.
This historic decision represents a powerful symbolic moment in the recognition of France’s slavery past. Although slavery had already been abolished in 1848, the “Code Noir” had remained officially present within the French legal framework until today.
Established in 1685 during the reign of King Louis XIV, the “Code Noir” classified enslaved Africans as property that could be bought, sold, or inherited. The text imposed severe restrictions and punishments upon enslaved people, controlling every aspect of their lives, including religion, movement, family relations, and resistance against colonial authority.
In Saint-Domingue, then considered one of the wealthiest colonies in the world due to sugar and coffee production, the “Code Noir” became one of the foundations of the plantation system. Hundreds of thousands of Africans deported to the colony endured violence and exploitation under this regime before the Haitian Revolution changed history forever.
Led by heroic figures such as Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the revolution resulted in the independence of Haiti in 1804, making it the first independent Black republic in the world.
The proposal to officially abolish the “Code Noir” was strongly supported by Guadeloupean deputy Max Mathiasin, who argued that true remembrance and justice could not be complete while such a text still legally existed, even symbolically.
The adopted legislation also requests a governmental report examining the lasting consequences of slavery and colonialism in French overseas territories, particularly regarding social, economic, and racial inequalities inherited from that painful era.
For many observers, historians, and descendants of enslaved peoples, this vote is more than a legal action. It is a recognition of historical suffering, a gesture of memory, and an important step toward justice and human dignity.
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