Marchers say no to ‘law of shame’

Thousands of inhabitants of the Carib bean island of Martinique marched through the streets of its capital, Fort-de-France, on Dec. 7 to denounce a ‘law of shame’ recently reaffirmed by France’s parliament.

Martinique is one of France’s colonies in the Caribbean. Its 430,000 people are descendants of Africans kidnapped and enslaved to work on sugar plantations. As citizens of France today, they are subject to its laws.

The controversial law instructs schools to teach “the positive aspects of the French presence overseas and in North Africa.” It was passed last February, but some progressives in the French parliament recently tried to amend it by removing the word “positive.”

The UMP, France’s ruling party, voted the amendment down after a campaign led by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. This was after the French government had clamped a tight lid on angry protests by young people in October and November in poor, working-class public housing projects surrounding the major cities of France, where the residents are mainly North African and West African in origin.

Sarkozy, who used inflammatory, racist and derogatory language to describe the youth in revolt, was due to visit Martinique on Dec. 7, igniting a firestorm of anger. Some 30 unions, associations, student groups, and the independence movement in Martinique called for the mass mobilization in Fort-de-France to make sure Sarkozy knew he was definitely not welcome.

Aimé Césaire, who represented Martin ique in the French parliament from 1946 to 1993 and is a major French literary figure, announced he would not meet with such a “shameful” politician.

On Dec. 6 Sarkozy canceled his trip, but the demonstration happened anyway because it was about “a law, not the man.”