The facts have taken place in the evening of Tuesday 23 June. A militant anti-racist tag "Négrophobie State" in red letters on the pedestal of the statue of Colbert in front of the national Assembly in Paris, before throwing the red paint on the torso and legs of the statue and then to be arrested, in the wake, by the forces of the order. On the video of his action, filmed and broadcast on social networks, by the collective Brigade anti-négrophobie, of which he is the spokesman, he attempts to justify his act : "that is forbidden, it is racism. This man is an apologist of the négrophobie. "
The statue was cleaned the next day, and the man was released after his custody. On Friday 14 August, he was summoned before the correctional court of Paris, where he will be judged in the early afternoon for the facts" sign, sign or drawing made on a facade, a public highway or street furniture ".
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Colbert, the target of anti-racist activists
The degradation of the statue had been strongly condemned by elected officials of all stripes, starting with the president of the Assembly Richard Ferrand (LREM) : "In the life of a public man of the Seventeenth century, there are always dark parts and units of light, "he responded, taking the view that this" would perhaps not be a bad idea to enrich the statues of a plate, a panel that explains why this statue is here, the highlights of a character, the facts as glorious as those who are less so ".
Minister of Louis XIV, Colbert is the target of anti-racist activists to have been the origin of the Code noir to the French Caribbean, followed by other Codes, the blacks in the other colonies. A text thought to lay down some rules on the practice of slavery in the colonies. "His text is going to regulate all these relations, master-slave, and because of this legalization," says France Info.
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In a column published on Mediapart at the beginning of the month and signed by associations of activists, but also artists and politicians, including Danièle Obono (BIA) and Philippe Poutou (NPA), the collective Brigade anti-négrophobie defends his action. "It is to repair oblivion unbearable and insulting to the memory of the victims and their descendants that the activists of the Brigade anti-négrophobie denounce the black Code and Colbert for nearly two decades through legal means and peaceful, in the total indifference of a nation that advocates freedom of expression, but which, in reality, reserve some of the uses for communicators authorized to monopolize the word and shaping the public opinion. "
