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The trial of the tagger of the statue of Colbert sent back ... to May 10, the day which celebrates the abolition of slavery

2021-01-18T21:25:56.892Z


The trial of Franco Lollia, a Guadeloupean activist arrested last June after having vandalized the statue of the author, in 1685, of Code no.


Franco Lollia's lawyers did not expect so much.

"It's too good to be true", confides Me Georges-Emmanuel Germany, one of the four defenders of the "anti-negrophobia" activist who had tagged the statue of Colbert in front of the National Assembly in June.

His trial, which was to take place on Monday at the Paris Criminal Court (after having been postponed for the first time in mid August) will finally be held on May 10.

That is to say the day when France commemorates - since a decree of 2006 - "the memories of the slave trade, slavery and their abolition".

This date was chosen because of the Taubira law of May 10, 2001, recognizing trafficking and slavery as a "crime against humanity".

VIDEO.

Anti-racism: why the statue of Colbert has become the target of demonstrators

The new dismissal comes about because the defense has filed a QPC (Priority Constitutional Question) on the ability of the National Assembly to bring civil proceedings and therefore to prosecute Franco Lollia.

So much for the legal reason.

But it is above all the symbolic significance of the reference that we will retain.

“When the president (of the court) announced, obviously without doing it on purpose, the date of May 10, we all looked at each other in

particular, let's not say anything

.

Returning is complicated when you come like me expressly from Martinique, but what a gift!

May 10… It's hardly believable!

She was subjected to the law of ancestors, ”smiles Me Germany.

The Guadeloupe activist, spokesperson for the “Anti-Negrophobia Brigade”, was arrested on June 23 after having vandalized the statue of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, principal minister of Louis XIV, who had drafted in 1685 the infamous “Code black ”framing - in particular - the relations between masters and slaves defined then as“ movable property ”.

Franco Lollia, 49, had painted this statue red, which stands in front of the Palais-Bourbon, and tagged “State Negroophobia” in a letter of the same color.

On Monday, he was once again justified on leaving the court, where several of his supporters were waiting for him: "It is not Colbert that we are targeting, it is the responsibility of the State", a- he blurted out, assuring he wanted to denounce a "hypocrisy in France".

“I hear the symbolic action argument, but what about the material damage?”

This act was part of a series of anti-racist actions that took place in France and elsewhere in the world, after the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white policeman in Minneapolis (United States) last May.

The tragedy raised the question of symbols considered racist and colonial in public space.

Several statues of figures of slavery or colonization had been debunked or vandalized, all over the world.

A "wave" which had led Emmanuel Macron to react on June 15: "The Republic will not erase any trace or any name from its history.

The Republic will not unbolt a statue, ”promised the President of the Republic.

But ten days later, Franco Lollia attacked the statue of Louis XIV's grand financier, opposite the Chamber of Deputies.

“Colbert is always presented as the one who turned around the economy of France in the 17th century, but we never say how, nor with what crimes.

The story is always told from a white supremacist perspective, ”he explains.

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The lawyer of the Assembly, Saida Benouari, she does not call the story.

And prefers to remember that the case remains first "a file of material degradation".

“I hear the symbolic action argument, but what about the material damage?

What is the meaning of degrading property belonging to the public domain?

There are more civic ways to provoke debate, ”she explained Monday.

Source: leparis

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