The Court of Cassation, France’s highest judicial court, on Wednesday considered an appeal by several associations and individuals seeking compensation from the state for alleged “intergenerational damage” to descendants of slaves.
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After their application was rejected in the Court of First Instance and on Appeal, three associations as well as 23 individuals filed an appeal in cassation hoping to prove this harm related to the slave trade in which France had been actively involved since the seventeenth century until the abolition of the slave law. Slavery in 1848.
Admitting such bias, according to plaintiff’s counsel, Mr.H Patrice Spinosi, “to bypass” the law, “only symbolic, voted in 2001 in France and made the slave trade and slavery crimes against humanity.
The lawyer claimed before the Court of Cassation that it has “tangible legal and financial consequences arising from the state’s responsibility in slavery.”
The goal is to obtain “financial compensation to be paid to a fund that is likely to multiply the demands of the descendants of slaves,” detailed to AFP M.H Spinosi.
Solicitor General Blandine Mallet Bricot, who is representing the Attorney General, argued that this appeal was dismissed.
The Court of Cassation will issue its decision on July 5.
This procedure is not the first of its kind.
After the passage of the 2001 Act, several associations in the West Indies initiated legal proceedings for reparations against the state, to no avail.
