Crowds of people wielding clubs and ropes attacked Joséphine de Beauharnais statue
Fort-de-France, France:
Anti-racist activists have destroyed a statue of Napoleon’s Empress Joséphine and another colonialist figure on the French overseas territory of Martinique, the latest test of President Emmanuel Macron’s vow not to erase controversial monuments.
A statue of Joséphine de Beauharnais, born into a wealthy colonial family on the island and later become Napoleon’s first wife and empress, was attacked by a crowd of people wielding clubs and ropes, according to a journalist from the AFP in Fort-de-France on Sunday.
The emperor reintroduced slavery to the French colonies in 1802, eight years after it was banned under the French Revolution.
The statue of Josephine had already been beheaded almost 30 years ago and has never been repaired since.
A short distance away, militants also destroyed a statue of Pierre Belain d’Esnambuc, the trader who established the first French colony in Martinique in 1635.
In a video posted to social media last week, activists warned the statues would be targeted unless authorities removed them on Sunday.
A police source said the senior government official for the Caribbean island had ordered law enforcement not to intervene, although he denounced in a statement “the unacceptable actions of a violent minority”.
The debate over France’s colonial past was revived in part by new protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement that rocked the United States.
On May 22, the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Martinique, activists overturned two statues erected in honor of Victor Schoelcher, the legislator whose decree banned slavery throughout France in 1848.
Another bust of Schoelcher, in neighboring French territory Guadeloupe, was sawn and stolen last week, local media reported on Saturday. He was later found along a road about 40 kilometers away.
Critics say that instead of playing the role of whites, France should honor black figures who have braved prison or worse in their drive for emancipation.
But Macron warned in June that France would not remove statues or names of controversial figures, while denying that he was trying to deny racism or the country’s colonial past.
“The Republic will not erase any trace or any name from its history … but will look lucidly at our history and our memory together,” he said in a televised speech.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
