Jean-Marc Ayrault asked Saturday to rename a Colbert room in the National Assembly as well as a building in Bercy bearing the name of the minister on the initiative in 1685 of the Black Code, the former Prime Minister drawing the wrath of the majority.
"I appeal to the President of the National Assembly and to the Minister of Economy and Finance: the time has come to find another name for these places", writes Jean-Marc Ayrault, current president of the Fondation pour la memory of slavery, in a tribune in the World , dated Sunday and Monday.
“I also appeal to the President of the Republic and to the government, because this pedagogy of diversity concerns all institutions. France has for centuries been a country of openness and fraternity. Let us not be afraid to affirm it, to incarnate it, to celebrate it ”, pleads the former head of the socialist government.
In the wake of anti-racist American demonstrations, the monuments and statues linked to French colonial history or the slave trade are once again at the center of a memorial controversy.
Majority opposition
Assembly President Richard Ferrand replied on Twitter to Jean-Marc Ayrault that "combating racism requires keeping our memories and reason". "23-year-old Mayor, 5-year-old group president at the Assembly, meeting in the Colbert room, Jean-Marc Ayrault did not deem it useful to rename neither the Colbert street in Nantes nor this room", added this "walker" from socialist ranks.
Fighting racism requires remembering and reasoning. 23 years old Mayor, 5 years old group president at the Assembly, meeting in the Colbert room, @jeanmarcayrault did not consider it useful to rename neither the Colbert street in Nantes nor this room. An injunction of the news not of the memory. https://t.co/Mt4rL1D71m
- Richard Ferrand (@RichardFerrand) June 13, 2020The former tenant of Matignon replied on the same social network that "the work of memory takes time, for my part I started it in 1989 with the city of Nantes and in 2001 with the Taubira law".
Like other parliamentarians, the spokesperson for La République En Marche Aurore Bergé said she was "proud to be a member of Parliament who occupies a place whose history goes beyond us and reminds us every day of what we were elected for. "
“I do not want a country with trafficked history, demolished statues, the complexity of men abolished. Revisionism works both ways when we talk about the benefits of colonization and when we want to unbolt the statues of Churchill or Colbert, ”she added to L'Express .
For his part, the patron of senators LR Bruno Retailleau replied to the former Prime Minister of François Hollande that Colbert, minister of Louis XIV, "served France and contributed to its greatness".
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- Jean-Marc Ayrault
- Society
- France
- Racism
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