Paris (AFP)
"Solitude", heroine of the resistance of slaves in Guadeloupe in the nineteenth century has since Saturday a garden in her name in Paris, before soon becoming the first black woman to have her statue in the French capital.
"Soon, a statue of this heroine, the very first representing a black woman in Paris, will be installed there" tweeted the socialist mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, after the inauguration of the garden in the north of the city.
Born around 1772 to an African slave and a white sailor, she was one of the many women resisting the French troops.
In May 1802, the latter had landed on the island of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies, on the orders of Bonaparte, to restore slavery abolished in 1794.
Pregnant, Solitude joined the fighting before being arrested and sentenced to death.
She was hanged on November 29, 1802, the day after she gave birth.
It is "an important moment, because it inscribes the name of a woman who, by her courage and her commitment to justice and dignity, paved the way with others towards a definitive abolition of slavery. in France ", declared Mrs. Hidalgo during the inauguration of this garden.
In the West Indies, anti-colonialist activists debunked statues, including that of Joséphine de Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon I who re-established slavery, and demanded that black figures of emancipation be put forward.
In early July, the French government published a book listing 100 Africans who fought for France in the hope that some would be honored by a public space, an "educational" response to the temptation to unbolt the statues.
© 2020 AFP