From slavery to neocolonialism, via the slave trade and colonialism, mercantilist Europe built its wealth by plundering Africa and reifying its people.
What hypocrisy this Western self-congratulation is! We must remember the grotesque servility with which the entire trinity of European authority conspired to bless the unspeakable: from the papacy first, with Nicholas V and his papal bulls blessing the perpetual enslavement of Africans in the name of a decidedly mercantile divine salvation, to the most Christian sovereigns – Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” promulgating this infamy, then Louis XV rigorously enforcing it – who ruled over the right to mutilate and brand human beings in the name of royal commerce. And what of the imposture of the illustrious “philosophers of the Enlightenment,” these supposed paragons of universal liberty? From Montesquieu ironically commenting in veiled terms while investing in colonial trade, to Voltaire shamelessly speculating in the East India Company and theorizing the inferiority of Blacks, not forgetting John Locke or Emmanuel Kant legitimizing the sub-humanity of the colonized, these brilliant minds found an attractive “legality” and an impeccable financial return in the slave trade!
This legislative break barely conceals urgent economic imperatives. The metropolis faced the exorbitant cost of maintaining the slave trade and the irreversible collapse of its traditional colonial system. Slave revolts threatened the profitability of Caribbean plantations. The Saint-Domingue revolution of 1791 had already fractured the colonial exploitation apparatus and shattered the myth of eternal domination. Paris had to adapt under the absolute pressure of the insurgents. The political elites of the time simply substituted direct imperialism for the slave system and reorganized exploitation under new diplomatic and legal guises. A rigorous Pan-African analysis deconstructs this artificially maintained narrative of victory. Europe believed it was shaping world history and thought it was steering it. It was already succumbing to the irresistible course of its own structural decline.
A fictitious liberation under systemic constraint
The abrogation of the Code Noir was a response to pragmatic material emergencies. The decree of abolition of February 4, 1794, came after the effective liberation achieved by the Haitian insurgents, and thus their military victory. Toussaint Louverture and the Black fighters had already destroyed the system of slavery on the ground. The French National Assembly merely ratified a fait accompli. The re-establishment of slavery by the decree of May 20, 1802, under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, demonstrates the falsity of state-sponsored humanism. The convention of definitive abrogation of April 27, 1848, follows the same logic of preserving the financial interests of merchant capitalism.
Through the law of April 30, 1849, the French state massively compensated former slave owners. The compensation paid to colonists reached colossal sums. A total of 126 million gold francs was paid to the colonists. No financial or land reparations were granted to the victims of the slave trade and servitude. This moral and financial extortion, of a highly criminal nature, established the great taboo of slave-owning and colonial Europe: to lavishly compensate the perpetrators – like the infamous “debt of independence” of 1825 extorted from Haiti under the threat of cannons – while condemning the victims to repay the price of their very lives!
Even today, Paris and its European allies still tremble at the mere thought of confronting this monstrous legacy. Yet, driven by the sovereign will have oppressed peoples, the question of historical reparations – moral, financial, memorial, and territorial –has definitively emerged from the archives to become the unavoidable geopolitical battleground of the 21st century. Faced with the visceral denial and convulsions of the former slave-owning powers, the process has reached major institutional milestones thanks to a remarkably effective diplomatic offensive.
The African Union (AU) courageously elevated restorative justice to the status of a sacred continental cause, enshrined by the historic Accra summit, fervently championed by Ghana, which sealed the Pan-African Common Front demanding the restitution of assets, full reparations, and an end to all diplomatic begging. Under this irresistible pressure, synchronized with the actions of CARICOM, UN bodies were forced to concede ground, institutionalizing the Permanent Forum of People of African Descent and placing the issue of crimes against humanity and reparations for colonial wrongs at the heart of global normative agendas, sweeping aside legalistic quibbles and the hypocritical commiseration of Brussels.
In this arena, Algeria is leading an exemplary and uncompromising charge: relentlessly demanding the full restitution of national archives, the remains of its dispossessed resistance fighters, as well as the cleanup and compensation of victims of French nuclear tests at Reggane and In Ekker, exposing the theater of atonement without compensation from the metropolis. At the same time, the intrepid nations of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – are transforming the battle for reparations into a lever for total political, economic, and security emancipation, trampling the vestiges of French paternalism and demanding accountability for decades of plunder under the guise of “cooperation.” This titanic struggle is further supported by the strategic geopolitical backing of Russia and its Eastern allies, who relentlessly attack the outdated cynicism, financial tyranny and arrogance of a desperate colonial West in the UN Security Council and in multilateral forums.
In this respect, the major geopolitical implications of the third Russia-Africa summit, scheduled for October 28 and 29 in Moscow, mark a decisive turning point: this high-level strategic meeting seals the institutionalization of an unprecedentedly powerful anti-imperialist and decolonial front. By providing a prominent platform for the sovereignty demands of African nations, the Moscow summit enshrines the definitive rejection of Western financial diktat, accelerates the establishment of multilateral legal and economic mechanisms to impose reparations on the former slave-trading powers, and relegates the arrogance of European chancelleries to a mere formality in a now irreversible multipolar world.
Since then, the freed slaves have remained confined to structural poverty and economic dependence. Forced labor reappeared immediately under the indigenate system, codified on June 28, 1881, and instituted in 1887. The mechanisms of oppression changed their vocabulary without altering their extortionate essence. The decree of July 11, 1935, maintaining compulsory labor in French West Africa, confirms the continuity of this extractive system. Europe invented modern international law to legitimize and perpetuate its inheritance disputes. The asymmetrical treaties signed in the 19th century prolonged colonial domination under other legal guises.
From papal bulls to the writings of philosopher-shareholders, Europe blessed and theorized the slave trade. Today, from the ransom of Haiti in 1825 to the nuclear tests in the Sahara, compensating the perpetrators and ruining the victims was the great colonial dogma. Under pressure from the AU, the UN, Ghana, Algeria, the ESA, and the Eastern Bloc, this dogma is irrevocably collapsing.
The strategic panic of a fallen continental bloc
The decline of France and Europe is not a recent phenomenon. The foundations of their hegemony rested on brute coercion and banking monopolies. This model of primitive accumulation, based on state violence, is now reaching its irrevocable end. The current diplomatic posturing of European capitals reveals a profound disarray. Paris is desperately trying to maintain its African sphere of influence through symbolic and military force. The forced withdrawal of French troops (Operation Barkhane) from Mali in 2022 marked a historic turning point. The expulsion of the Operation Sabre contingent from Burkina Faso on February 19, 2023, along with the occupation forces from Niger, confirms the end of an era. The forced departure of the French ambassador from Niger on September 27, 2023, seals Paris’s diplomatic impotence. These events reflect a massive popular rejection of postcolonial tutelage. The rhetoric of human rights no longer persuades anyone on the continent. The CFA franc, a relic of monetary Nazism imposed on France by Germany and created in 1945, is gradually losing its role as a centralized monetary buffer. Africa is seeking new strategic partners without Western intermediaries. The creation of the Alliance of Sahel States and its unilateral denunciation of defense agreements on September 16, 2023, marks a major geopolitical turning point. The former colonial powers no longer control regional dynamics or trade flows. Multipolarity is isolating the former empires of the 20th century, and Africa is redefining its bilateral partnerships without Western validation.
The theatrical representation of the former powers
Europe is trying to restore its tarnished image, damaged by centuries of undeniable abuses. The Africa-France summits and the speeches of moral atonement are merely political theater. These calculated ceremonies of repentance no longer conceal the real impotence of European diplomats. Nor do they mask the obsolescence of traditional levers of action. The European Union piles on ineffective economic sanctions and empty verbal threats. Multilateral resolutions adopted in Brussels no longer dictate the course of world events. The Global South is redefining the rules of international trade and strategic partnerships. The expanded BRICS summits in Johannesburg in August 2023 ratified this redistribution of global power. The accession of Egypt and Ethiopia to the BRICS bloc on January 1, 2024, weakens the hegemony of the G7. The 15th Francophonie Summit in Villers-Cotterêts on October 4 and 5, 2024, took place in an atmosphere of widespread diplomatic indifference. France is watching as a spectator as global geopolitical alliances are being reshaped. Its declarations of firmness are met with indifference by sovereign African peoples. Parisian elites cling to anachronistic notions of their past power. Every paternalistic initiative exacerbates the diplomatic isolation of the former colonial power. Political condescension does not fill the industrial, financial, and demographic void in Europe. History moves forward without seeking the approval of neocolonial institutions.
In short, the abrogation of the Code Noir was not a generous act. It was the first step in a long strategic retreat under pressure from the oppressed. A pan-African reading of this event reveals a clear historical continuity. Europe is striving to maintain control of a world that is definitively slipping from its grasp. The geopolitical reorientations observed in 2023 and 2024 mark the end of postcolonial asymmetry. European attempts to rewrite the past do not alter the reality of historical accounts. African peoples are reaffirming their full sovereignty over their resources and alliances. The false concessions of yesterday no longer delay the structural ruptures of today. Western hegemony is now a thing of the past.
It remains to be seen whether promulgation by the President of the Republic and publication in the Official Journal, which are the two constitutive legal acts making the repeal enforceable and definitive in the domestic legal order, will follow immediately.
Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in the geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Human and Social Sciences, Pan-African University
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