The Paris Court of Appeal condemned, on Monday, May 5, the activist of the Antinegrophobia Brigade Franco Lollia, who had tagged the statue of Jean-Baptiste Colbert before the National Assembly in 2020, a fine of 500 euros suspended. At first instance, in June 2021, he was sentenced to a fine of the same amount, but firm, and to pay 1,040 euros in the National Assembly for the material damage. He had appealed this conviction.
“It’s a justice masquerade”reacted the Guadeloupe activist after the rendering of the decision. His lawyer, Guy Florentin, announced a cassation appeal “In the coming days”. “If the decision is not favorable, we will seize the European Court of Human Rights”he added.
On June 23, 2020, in front of the Palais-Bourbon, the 49-year-old Guadeloupe had tagged “State negrophobia” In red on the base of the statue of Colbert, minister of Louis XIV and initiator of the black code which has legislated on slavery in the French colonies. He then threw red paint on the statue.
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“The Republic will not unlock a statue”
The anti -racist activist had been immediately arrested. “What is prohibited is racism. This man [Colbert] praises negrophobia “he had said to the police, in a filmed scene and put online on social networks by the antinegrophobia brigade, a collective to combat racism founded in 2005.
In the wake of anti-racist demonstrations in the world following the death of George Floyd in the United States, the monuments and statues linked to French colonial history or the slave trade had found themselves at the center of a memory controversy. The pedestal of the statue of General Faidherbe, in the center of Lille, had been covered with words « colon » et « assassin » Registered in red, the day after a demonstration aimed at claiming its withdrawal from public space, in June 2020. A bust of Charles de Gaulle had been vandalized in Hautmont (North) with the word “Slavery” Written in red painting, as the president of the Hauts-de-France Regional Council, Xavier Bertrand, on X.
Emmanuel Macron then declared, during a speech, that he would be “Intratable in the face of racism, anti -Semitism and discrimination”more than “This noble fight is misguided when it turns into communitarianism, into hateful or false rewriting of the past”. “The Republic will not erase any trace or name of its history. The Republic will not unlock a statue. Rather, we must lucidly look together with our history, all our memories ”he had concluded.
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