recognition of French injustice | EUROtoday

La declaration is symbolic however we should not ignore the political drive of symbols. By declaring, the day of the bicentenary of the royal ordinance of April 17, 1825 recognizing the independence of the previous French colony of Santo Domingo, that the choice to drive the younger Republic of Haiti to the cost of an exorbitant sum for compensation for his emancipation had “Placed a price on the freedom of a young nation”delivering it to the “Unjust strength of history”Emmanuel Macron achieved, on behalf of France, an vital gesture.

Proclaimed^er January 1804 by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, after the victory of the insurgent troops in opposition to the French expeditionary drive arrived in Santo Domingo in 1802 with a purpose to regain management of the island and to revive slavery there, the Republic of Haiti certainly needed to pay a sum of 150 million gold francs, decreased to 90 million in 1838, with a purpose to compensate the planters.

This debt, quickly to be elevated by astronomical pursuits which made the heyday of French banks and which had been paid till 1953, weighed on a substantial weight on the shoulders of this cold territory, weighted from the outset by violence and the inheritance of social buildings from slavery.

The historic information listed here are recognized and completely established. Also the Franco-Haitian blended fee introduced by Emmanuel Macron might be “Responsible for examining our common past and enlightening all the dimensions”. Placed underneath the joint presidency of the French historian and diplomat Yves Saint-Geours and Gusti-Klara Gaillard-Pourchet, professor on the State University of Haiti, this one is in entrance of a mission as political as historic: to develop between France and Haiti a shared story more likely to result in “A more peaceful future” – Prerequisite required earlier than any dialogue on the character of any repairs.

THE work is not going to be straightforward, because the difficulties are immense: the Haitian state, trapped in an countless spiral of violence, is hardly greater than an abstraction, and the duty To restore a secure authorities in Port-au-Prince is titanic.

As for the French State, he should perform an train of return on his previous, nonetheless unfinished. If, in his declaration, Emmanuel Macron praises the Haitian revolution, which, “In harmony with the ideals of the French Revolution, should have offered France and Haiti the opportunity to go common to »»it a little quickly attributed responsibility for rupture to only “Forces of counter-revolution” At work after the restoration of 1814 – in other words to the Bourbons, ignoring the expedition wanted by Napoleon Bonaparte to restore slavery. However, this was what led Haitians to proclaim their independence – while the Guadeloupe rebellion was suppressed in the blood.

Thus, while in Paris the legislators worked to complete the Revolution by the Civil Code, defining a base of rights inherited from the Enlightenment that France would soon aim to offer to the world, the heirs of 1789 had decided that the equality of men, despite its character “Universal”did not extend to the colonies, on the basis of a color prejudice. A decision whose effects will continue until the end of the French colonial empire.