An article in the weekly Valeursuelles, published Thursday, August 28, caused an outcry on social networks and the firm and unanimous condemnation of the entire French political class.
Entitled "Obono l'Africaine, where the rebellious MP experiences the responsibilities of Africans in the horrors of slavery", the article - part of the weekly's summer novel - depicts, under cover of an account by fiction, the member of the radical left as a slave of the 18th century.
Represented chained around the neck by a straitjacket, the parliamentarian of Gabonese origin serves as an illustration of an imaginary story in which she returns to her "ancestral continent" at the time of the slave trade.
The image immediately caused controversy, and revives the question of France's relationship to its slave past.
Slavery, a "largely hidden" past
On June 14, in the wake of the anti-racist demonstrations triggered by the death of African-American George Floyd in the United States, French President Emmanuel Macron promised to be "intractable in the face of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination ".
But the Head of State also insisted: "the Republic will not erase any name, any trace of its history, it will not unbolt any statue".
Comments affirmed after several monuments, honoring figures of the slave trade or its defenders, have been degraded or debunked.
The "noble cause" of anti-racism "is corrupted when it turns into (...) communitarianism and a hateful and false rewrite of our history", added the French president.
According to Carole Reynaud-Paligot, historian specializing in colonialism, Emmanuel Macron's words were a "missed opportunity" to establish the facts on a dark chapter in the history of France.
"All nation states feel the need to establish a national narrative that glorifies their past," says the researcher.
"Slavery does not match France's discourse on the country of human rights, so it is largely concealed. Instead, the French narrative speaks of a country that has done a lot of good for its colonies and led the struggle for the abolition of slavery. "
"Putrid Roman"
The hateful rewritings of French history took a particularly sinister turn with the publication of Current Values.
"The far right - odious, stupid and cruel", reacted Danièle Obono in a tweet, later describing the article as "an insult to [my] ancestors" and "an insult to the Republic".
The MP also denounced a political attack against those who fight against "the racism [and] the stigmatization of which millions of our compatriots are victims".
It seems 'Qu'on-Peut-Pu-Rien-Dire' #BienPensance.
Fortunately we can still write racist shit in a tea towel illustrated by the images of a black African French deputy repainted as a slave ...
The extreme right, odious, stupid and cruel.
In short, equal to itself.
pic.twitter.com/EupKSXZ207
- MP Obono (@Deputee_Obono) August 28, 2020
With this illustration, Current Values has drawn the wrath of the entire political sphere, up to President Emmanuel Macron.
The French presidency said that the head of state had called Danièle Obono, expressing "his clear condemnation of any form of racism".
Its Prime Minister, Jean Castex, castigated a "revolting publication which calls for a clear condemnation", and declared to the deputy that she had the support of the government.
"We are free to write a putrid novel within the limits set by law. We are free to hate it. I hate it," added the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, while the young minister of the he equality and the only black member of the French government, Élisabeth Moreno, also wrote a supportive tweet.
On Monday, the Paris prosecutor, Rémy Heitz, said that a preliminary investigation was opened for "racist insults".
"Deviate from responsibility in order to minimize the misdeeds of France"
In its defense, Current Values invoked the “fight against political correctness”.
If the weekly apologized to Danièle Obono on Saturday, however, he denied having intended to hurt her.
Its purpose, said deputy editor Tugdual Denis, on BFM TV, was to show the "destroyers of history" that Africans were also responsible for the "horrors of slavery".
According to Carole Reynaud-Paligot, the magazine's self-proclaimed "provocative" publications are "typical of right-wing nationalist discourse".
This adds that "the objective is to deflect responsibility in order to minimize the misdeeds of France, while rejecting people presented as different, foreign".
"Of course, some Africans were involved in the slave trade, any system of domination is based on intermediaries", specifies the researcher.
"But that does not diminish the responsibility of those who planned, administered and benefited from this system."
Historian of the slave trade at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Myriam Cottias explains, for her part, that the magazine's vision of this sensitive history is "entirely ideological".
The conservative weekly "seeks to prove that there is a taboo on inter-African slavery, which is absolutely false, the subject having been widely studied and documented," she told France 24.
At school, slavery taught "selectively and superficially"
Current Values' attempt to deflect responsibility for the slave trade carried out by European colonial powers reflects a tendency to treat slavery as a peripheral problem in French history.
According to Myriam Cottias, the inability to recognize slavery and the slave trade as central to French history and to the wealth accumulated during the colonial era, is linked to the way these subjects are treated in the 'school.
Although compulsory in French secondary schools, the history of slavery is taught in a selective and superficial manner, she explains.
In the current curriculum, students learn about slavery in Brazil and the United States, while the role of France is largely approached from the "glorious" angle of the abolitionist struggle.
"How can you abolish slavery if you haven't studied it first?"
asks the CNRS researcher.
Also, over the years, French ambivalence with regard to this past has resulted in very different political initiatives.
In 2001, under the Jospin government, MP Christiane Taubira - one of the few black politicians to have held a high-ranking ministerial portfolio in all five French republics - sponsored a landmark bill recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity.
Four years later, a bill underlined the "positive role" of overseas colonization.
The article in question led to a heated controversy waged by historians and jurists, forcing the Raffarin government to back down.
"A fertile ground for radicalization"
While critics of anti-racism protests have accused them of undermining national cohesion, experts warn that a frank and open reading of French history is essential to redress existing divisions.
"This is not to exacerbate French guilt, but to establish and recognize the facts in order to allay resentments and frustrations," said Carole Reynaud-Paligot.
"Failure to do so can generate feelings of humiliation and resentment which, in turn, create fertile ground for radicalization."
Myriam Cottias, meanwhile, argues that by omitting parts of the country's history, politicians are guilty of encouraging the divisions they denounce.
“Governments cannot advocate national unity and then choose only the parts of history with which they are comfortable,” she told France 24. “They are the ones who create 'separatism. ', by depriving part of the population of the means to identify with the country and its history. "
The solution is therefore not to erase history, but to "complete" it, she adds, referring to the case of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Royal Minister of the 17th century instigator of the "Black Code", governing the slaves in the French colonies.
The former Prime Minister of Louis XIV is celebrated in France for his economic doctrine, "Colbertism", which is based on the idea that state intervention is necessary to serve the country's economy.
But Colbert has also become a prime target for anti-racist protesters who call for the removal of symbols of colonial-era oppression.
At the end of June, activists scribbled graffiti on a large statue of Colbert located in front of the National Assembly.
Also, if she does not advocate the withdrawal of statues, Myriam Cottias recognizes all the same that slavery was indeed "at the heart" of Colbertism and that it "must be recognized as such".
Opposite the statue of Colbert, on the other side of the Seine, a state-commissioned commemorative site will soon honor the victims of slavery.
It will be installed in the Tuileries Gardens, near the site where slavery was first abolished in 1794, during the French Revolution, before being definitively banned in 1848, after Napoleon reinstated it.
The location, and the public call for tenders which ended on Tuesday, place the monument in the tradition of French Republican commemorations, notes Myriam Cottias.
Artists who submit proposals are required to engrave the full names of some 200,000 slaves who were freed and given last names after the second and last abolition in 1848. “Thus, the Memorial to the Victims of Slavery becomes a monument for the Republic ", declares the historian.
"It celebrates the Republic which abolished slavery and freed slaves - not to mention all the others."
Article adapted from English by Pauline Rouquette, find the original version here.
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