Several overseas deputies condemned this Friday, February 3, the remarks of the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Gérald Darmanin, whom they accuse of "
historical revisionism
" concerning the history of slavery in the Overseas Territories.
"
It is the French Republic which abolished slavery (...) we therefore ask (the overseas territories) to love the Republic
", declared the minister on Thursday during a symposium organized by the weekly
Le Point
. .
“Sense of identity”
"
There is in the West Indies, in Guyana, a feeling of identity, of reaction, which deserves to be heard but which (...) does not deserve to be heard as New Caledonia deserves to be heard because it's not the same story
," he added.
“
To the moral relativism of the colonizing powers, persuaded to bring culture and knowledge to the populations whose capacities for self-determination they undermined at the same time as they killed their creative power, seems to have succeeded a new form of historical revisionism
”, reacted Friday 18 deputies elected overseas in a press release.
"
If colonial history is indeed plural in its realization, it is one in its causes and in its current consequences: the overseas territories remain the pure product of expansionism, are still considered as relays of power and influence, and are dependent on national prisms because they are constantly brought back to their geostrategic virtues
,” they continued.
Read alsoSlavery: "Has the Netherlands opened Pandora's box of repentance?"
The abolition of slavery is "
the result of the constant resistance of slaves, forced to wrest their freedom where the decisions of the Republic mentioned by Gérald Darmanin were slow to be proclaimed, and even more so, to be applied
", insists overseas deputies.
“
It is this same Republic which maintains our overseas territories in a state of chronic underdevelopment and which almost systematically ignores the overseas territories in the bills presented to Parliament, gradually divesting the latter of its prerogatives
,” they add.
The new military programming law is "
endowed with hundreds of billions of euros intended in particular to strengthen the so-called + sovereignty + forces overseas
", regret these elected officials, while the members of the government "
knowingly look away when it is a matter of ensuring decent living (and retirement) conditions for the populations of the territories which ensure its rank as the world's second maritime power
”.