Post date: May 10, 2013 12:4:39 PM
French President Francois Hollande marks eighth annual slavery commemoration with solemn ceremony.
PARIS, FRANCE (MAY 10, 2013) (FRENCH POOL) - French President Francois Hollande participated on Friday (May 10) in a ceremony commemorating the abolition of slavery.
Hollande placed flowers in front of a commemorative statue in Paris's Jardin duLuxembourg park, adjacent to the French Senate building, before addressing gathered crowds.He said that France's historical fight against slavery had to be remembered.
"Because let's never forget that it's the Republic which was born in the fight against slavery, and it's the Republic which abolished slavery in 1794, the first Republic. And then in 1848, April 1848, the Second Republic, which finally allowed the abolition of slavery -- but not of colonisation. Our responsibility is to give a future to this memory," he said.
The president quoted lines from Aime Cesaire, French Caribbean poet fromMartinique, about the impossibility of reparation.
Hollande added that his country's current military intervention in Mali was part of the debt owed to Africans.
"I also know what our Republic owes to the sacrifices of thousands of Africans, who came to liberate it. And today, in the name of this solidarity, we are present in Mali, to fight against intolerance, fanaticism and terror we too are paying our debt by sending soldiers," he said.
The event was part of the eighth annual national day of memorial for the slave trade, slavery and abolition.