The French Senate has passed the bill to repeal the "Code Noir" - the text that regulated the status of enslaved people in French colonies. In the vote on October 20, 2026, 320 senators supported the measure, with none against. 18 abstained, and 10 did not participate in the vote. The decision was made with 338 senators voting.
The Senate adopted the text after the National Assembly unanimously approved it on May 28. Thus, both chambers of the French parliament supported the formal deletion of the ordinance and its related provisions. After parliamentary approval, the law is to be promulgated.
What the bill repeals
The “Black Code“ is a royal decree of March 1685, issued during the reign of Louis XIV. It defines the rules for slavery in the French colonies and treats enslaved people as property. Later, other provisions related to its application in various colonial territories were added to the main text.
The adopted bill repeals the 1685 decree, as well as all texts by which it was applied, adapted or expanded. It also recognizes that the provisions that turned people into chattels and organized deportation, exploitation and violence against them are inseparable from the crime against humanity that the slave trade and slavery represent.
A symbolic, not an effective legal change
Slavery in the French colonies was finally abolished in 1848 and the norms of the “Black Code“ have long had no practical legal effect. However, they have not been explicitly repealed, which has turned the current decision into an act of historical and political recognition.
“The silence that we have maintained for nearly two centuries on this Black Code is no longer a mere omission. It has become a form of insult“, said President Emmanuel Macron before the vote in the Senate.
The bill also provides for an additional step. Within a year of the law's promulgation, the government must submit to parliament a report on the provisions stemming from colonial law that are still in force in the overseas territories. The document must also examine the long-term consequences of this legacy on economic, social and cultural development, as well as on racism and discrimination.
The repeal was supported by senators from all parliamentary groups, but some left-wing representatives abstained, insisting that issues of memory, education and possible reparations for the descendants of enslaved people should also be discussed in parallel.
Sources: apnews.com, tf1info.fr, lemonde.fr