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The decolonization of public space in Europe refers to a movement originating in former European colonies after they gained independence in the second half of the 20th century before spreading to Europe and the Western world as a whole at the beginning of the 21st century. It did not reach its peak in Europe until 2020 in the wake of the demonstrations against racism and police brutality following the murder of George Floyd, who was killed by the police on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The movement and its actions emanate from anti-racist and anti-colonial associations, and is the most publicized example of de-commemoration.

List

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Belgium

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Kalvin Soiresse Njall, a Belgian Green MP, claimed that Belgium "no longer has colonies, but the spirit of colonization is still written in stone on every street corner".[1]

Beginnings from 2004

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See also: Atrocities in the Congo Free State

During a protest in 2004, the hand of one of the "grateful Congolese" depicted on the Leopold II monument in Ostend was sawn off to denounce the king's abuses in the Congo. Subsequently, activists proposed returning the hand on one condition: that the Royal Family apologize for its behavior during the colonial period.[2]

In September 2008, an activist named Théophile de Giraud daubed the equestrian statue of Leopold II in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, with red paint: he described his act as a "symbol of the blood of innocent Congolese killed or mutilated under the orders of the bloodthirsty sovereign."[2]

Evolution during the 2010s

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Anti-racism and anti-colonialism collectives (2015)
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On December 17, 2015, following the project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the accession to the throne of the "builder king" by the City of Brussels, various groups (including the New Anti-Colonial Way, the Colonial Memory, and the Fight Against Discrimination collective) gathered in front of the equestrian statue of Leopold II in Brussels to contest the work, denounce the crimes of Belgian colonization in the Congo and the general lack of memory in Belgium around this past.[3][4]

Tribunes (2016-2018)
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On June 15, 2016, a column published in the daily newspaper Le Soir signed by various academics and members of civil society invited reflection on the place of the equestrian statue of Leopold II from a "decolonial" perspective. The statue, very close to the African quarter of Brussels Matonge, can be considered as the focal point of the debate on Belgian colonial memory.[5]

In November 2018, a new column entitled Decolonizing public space to fight against racism signed by Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, president of Bamko-Cran ASBL and co-author of a book entitled Anti-black racism between misrecognition and contempt, denounces the impact on people's minds of the persistence in the streets of Belgium of many colonial symbols such as busts, statues and plaques: "Our public space is not neutral, on the contrary, it contributes to racism and reinforces the discrimination that results from it, in particular by glorifying colonial figures". The author calls for the "decolonization of public space and school curricula" and to "contextualize colonial monuments with explanatory plaques".[6]

Émile Storms (2018-2020)
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Criticism also arose about Émile Storms, a Belgian soldier commissioned by King Leopold II to colonize the Congo in the 19th century. During his expedition, he decapitated Lusinga lwa Ng'ombe, a Congolese slave trader. Upon his return to Europe, he entrusted the skull to the racialist anthropologist Émile Houzé, who wrote a treatise on the subject in which he claimed to have seen "degeneration" in it.[7]

In March 2018, the Paris Match magazine recalled that this skull still rests in a box at the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, along with those of two other rebel leaders, one of whom had however disappeared from the collections.[8]

Since his arrival at the Ixelles town hall at the end of 2018, the ecologist mayor Christos Doulkeridis has been working on relocating Storms monument, whose bust stands in the middle of the Meeûs square: "I asked to move the bust to a museum, which was accepted. […] Public space belongs to everyone, it carries a message, it is not static in essence, it is evolving. 'General Storms' represented a certain era. He remained in the public space for several decades. Now, he can go elsewhere. His place is in a museum, which will allow the facts to be better contextualized".[9]

On May 28, 2020, Belgian television announced an agreement in principle to move the statue of Storms to the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervueren.[9]

On June 13, General Storms' bust was sprayed with red paint.[10]

Peak of the movement in 2020

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Position taken by Brussels political parties in favor of the decolonisation of public space
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On June 4, 2020, the majority parties in the Brussels-Capital Region (PS, Ecolo, DéFI, Groen, Open Vld, and One Brussels) began tabling a resolution aimed at decolonizing public space in the Brussels region.[11][12]

The coalition stated that: "This resolution calls in particular on the Brussels Government to draw up an inventory of the names of public squares and streets on the heritage of Belgian colonial history".[11][12] The proposed resolution called for the establishment of a steering group composed of experts and people from civil society, among others, which "will be responsible for making concrete proposals as part of the work of contextualizing and/or moving colonial remains in museums".[11][12]

"This important work on colonial memory constitutes a priority for the decolonization of minds. It is essential to fight against the colonial imagination in Belgium." Explained the ecologist MP Kalvin Soiresse Njall.[11][12]

The Brussels socialist MP Leila Agic quoted Frantz Fanon: "The immobility to which the colonized is condemned can only be called into question if the colonized decides to put an end to the history of colonization, to the history of pillage, in order to bring into being the history of the nation, the history of decolonization".[11]

Removal and degradation of statues in Belgium after the assassination of George Floyd in the United States
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See also: Black Lives Matter

On June 5, 2020, an African-descendant student launched a petition demanding the removal of the statue of Leopold II which was located on the premises of her university in Mons. On June 8, UMONS decided to "remove the bust and put it away permanently in the reserves so that no one – students, teachers or outside visitors – could feel offended by its presence".[13][14]

On June 9, a statue of Leopold II dating from 1873 was removed from the Antwerp district of Ekeren in order to be restored at the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp after having been the target of damage on several occasions.[15] On June 10, the press announced that the equestrian statue of Leopold II in Brussels has been covered with several inscriptions after a "Black Lives Matter" demonstration which brought together more than 10,000 people demonstrating against racism on June 7, 2020 in Brussels.[16] The protest occurred in the wake of the demonstrations and riots against racism and police violence following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the United States on May 25, 2020: "We can notably read a large "Pardon" on his bust, the inscription "BLM" in reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, "Fuck racism" or "This man killed 15M people".[17][18][19][20]

On June 11, a bust of King Leopold II, located on the Square du Souverain in Auderghem, was thrown to the ground with blows from a sledgehammer and then tagged with red paint.[21][22]

On June 12, the bust of King Baudouin, placed in front of the Saints-Michel-et-Gudule cathedral in Brussels, was covered in red paint, with the word "Reparation" tagged on the base of the monument.[23][24]

The day after, on June 13, the statue of Leopold II located on Rue de Belle-Vue in Ixelles, was tagged "Abolish racist monuments", and the bust of General Storms in the same city was sprayed with red paint.[10] A few days later, the statue of Leopold II in Arlon was targeted.[25]

On June 30, the day of the 60th anniversary of the independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo, activists tried to cover the equestrian statue of Leopold II in Brussels with black tarpaulins, but were prevented from doing so by the police. On the same day, the city of Ghent proceeded to unbolt the bust of Leopold II to public applause.[26] For mayor Mathias De Clercq: "This does not erase history or the underlying problems, there is still a lot of work to be done. But as a city, it is an important first step to stop the glorification and for many fellow citizens and compatriots to continue soberly".[27] The bust was then moved to the Ghent City Museum.[28]

Position of the Brussels Secretary of State responsible for Urban Planning and Brussels Heritage
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On June 10, 2020, Pascal Smet, Brussels Secretary of State for Urban Planning and Heritage, announced that he would "propose to the Brussels government that it set up a working group to decide on the fate of references in the capital to King Leopold II, a contested figure of colonialism".[19][29] According to Pascal Smet, this group would be composed in particular of experts and representatives of the population of Congolese origin residing in Brussels.[29]

"If the conclusion of this debate is that these references must be removed, I will grant the necessary planning permission," the Secretary of State explained to the Belga news agency. Pascal Smet has also openly spoken out in favor of having a decolonization memorial in Brussels. Also, if the working group concluded that the statues of Leopold II should be removed, nothing ruled out the possibility of transforming one or the other to include it in the memorial, according to Pascal Smet.[29]

"For the Secretary of State, the Black Lives Matter movement and a petition that recently gathered 60,000 signatures in favor of the removal of the statues of King Leopold II justify holding an in-depth debate on this issue".[19][29]

Reaction of the mayor of Auderghem
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On June 12, the mayor of Auderghem Didier Gosuin made it known that he had no intention of removing sculptures or renaming streets: "That's not how we advance democracy and that's not how we change history either".[30][31] "I strongly condemn these acts of vandalism and I don't believe they facilitate a reasoned reading of history".[30][31] He further stated: "I don't deny the need to have an objective reading of colonial history, but it's not up to the municipalities to do that. It's up to the federal state to bring together a group of experts and historians to propose a reading that is not the one made by the colonists. Changing the narrative must be done in a peaceful manner, not in conflict".[30][31]

Didier Gosuin announced that he would send a letter to the federal government to ask the Prime Minister to bring together a college of experts and historians, in order to propose a compliant story to be disseminated in school textbooks and the public space.[30][31] Contextualization could recall the metaphorical parts of shadow and light next to certain statues and street names.[30]

Gosuin concludes by evoking Napoleon: "We owe Napoleon the civil code and great advances, but also barbarity and massacres to satisfy his imperial madness. He appears everywhere in the French public space. The French do not yet have sufficient perspective on him, even if we no longer glorify Napoleon in the same way today. Those who have had power in history have rarely been saints".[30][31]

Juliana Lumumba's reaction
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Juliana Lumumba, the only daughter of Patrice Lumumba— who was the first Prime Minister of independent Congo in 1960 before being assassinated a few months later in Elisabethville (Lumumbashi)— follows from Kinshasa the passionate discussions taking place in Belgium on the legacy of Belgian colonisation of the Congo.[32]

For her: "Whether we remove these statues or leave them is a question for the conscience of the Belgians. But Leopold II is part of the history of Belgium and the Congo, whether we like it or not. History will not change because we decide to remove these statues".[32]

She concluded: "Too much passion has crept into the debate, and too little knowledge. How many people really know who they are talking about when they talk about Leopold II? I recommend that in Belgian and Congolese schools, we study the historical facts. If you know them, you can judge. You don't change history by setting fire to a statue".[33]

General Storms Monument to be Removed in 2022

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On June 30, 2022, the municipality of Ixelles had the monument to General Storms removed without planning permission, and placed it in storage while waiting to find out which museum would take it back.[34][35] According to Aliou Baldé of the collective Mémoire coloniale: “This is an important act. It proves that the public authorities are listening. For us, it is the culmination of a battle. But not yet of the decolonial war, which will continue”.[36]

The case of the “Savage” of the Ath fair (2019-2023)

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The "Savage" is a carnival character made up in black, who wears a nose ring and chains around his wrists, and who parades every year on a float at the Ducasse d'Ath in Belgium. This festival, which has existed since the 16th century, brings together tens of thousands of people on the last weekend of August, and was listed by UNESCO in 2008 as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, integrated into the element "Processional Giants and Dragons of Belgium and France".[37]

In August 2019, an anti-racist collective called "Bruxelles Panthères" (English: Brussels Panthers) launched a petition against this practice, which it likened to blackface and denounced as "a vestige of slavery". It appealed to UNESCO on this subject. The spokesperson for the collective stressed that "it is time to react to the negrophobia rife in Belgium" and requested that the Ath fair be stripped of its UNESCO label "if necessary".[37] UNESCO, which took the collective's appeal very seriously, responded that the Ath fair must comply with the fundamental principles of the 2003 Convention, and must therefore in particular respect "the requirement of mutual respect between communities, groups and individuals". It also drew a parallel with the problem of the anti-Semitic floats at the Aalst carnival, for which UNESCO was also notified.[38] Aware that this character could offend, the municipality and the organizers of the Ath fair said they were open to debate to change it, but who nevertheless paraded normally in 2019 despite the controversy.[37]

Cancelled in 2020, the Ath ducasse made a comeback in 2021 and 2022, but the character of the "Savage" was still there. The collective Bruxelles Panthères therefore sent a letter in 2022 to the Director General of UNESCO in which it expressed concern about "the weakness of the reactions of both the political authorities and civil society in our country in the face of this unspeakable, degrading and particularly racializing situation". The mayor of Ath replied that there was no question of removing the character of the "Savage", because there was no racist dynamic according to him, but wanted to develop it in consultation with the population, "otherwise, we will create another reaction, a reaction of racism, this time, because we will have the impression that our tradition has been stolen from us, that our folklore has been stolen and that something else has been imposed on us".[39]

On 2 December 2022, at the request of the French-speaking Belgian Minister of Culture, UNESCO finally removed the Ducasse d'Ath from the list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The municipality regretted any decision that could lead to the local population being associated with racism, when a process of change had been initiated. For his part, the director of Unia (Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against Racism), even if he believes that "this character really poses a problem", was surprised by UNESCO's decision occurring when a dialogue was underway.[40] Finally, the spokesperson for the collective Bruxelles Panthères said he was both satisfied with the withdrawal, but also sad and bitter: "We are happy to have been right [...] but we also feel sadness, because Belgium is humiliated internationally and that does not solve the problem of negrophobia and racism in our country".[40]

At the beginning of 2023, the Ath Municipal Council formed an assembly of 60 representative citizens to study the problem. At the end of its third session, in April 2023, a consensus was reached to change the character who would become the "devil of the Neapolitan Fishermen's boat".[41] No longer a "wild man" but rather a "devil" playing pranks, the character could no longer be accused of blackface. However, on August 27, the character of the "Savage" appeared without any change, while the crowd applauded and chanted "Thank you Sauvage!".[42] The team of the "Neapolitan Fishermen's Boat", of which the controversial character was a part, mentioned problems with makeup and lighting.[43]

Denmark

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Copenhagen

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On the night of June 30, 2020, the graffiti "Decolonize" was daubed on the base of the statue of Danish missionary Hans Egede, considered the father of the Danish colonization of Greenland in the 18th century, which stood next to the Frederiks Kirke (Frederick's Church) in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.[44]

A few days later, on 3 July 2020, activists wrote the words "racist fish" on the stone base of Copenhagen's famous Little Mermaid statue.[44][45][46] Ane Grum-Schwensen of the University of Southern Denmark told the Danish news agency Ritzau: "I find it hard to see what is particularly racist about the fairy tale The Little Mermaid."[45] One hypothesis is that this action was linked to the controversy over the remake of the Disney animated film of the same name, in which African-American actress Halle Bailey was cast in the lead role.  In addition, stickers were placed on the mermaid's breasts and knee.[46]

Greenland

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On the night of 20–21 June 2020, just hours before Greenland’s national holiday, the statue of missionary Hans Egede in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, was smeared with red paint to give the priest’s robes a bloody appearance, while the pedestal was marked with Inuit symbols and the word “Decolonize,” and the stick Egede carried was transformed into a whip.[47][48] The statue (of which the one in Copenhagen is a copy) stood on the hill overlooking Nuuk, where the missionary had landed on 3 July 1721, marking the beginning of Danish colonization.[48] In an anonymous statement, the group responsible said: “It is time for us to stop celebrating the colonizers and start taking back what is rightfully ours. It is time to decolonize our minds and our country.” "No colonizer deserves to be on top of a mountain like that".[47]

In Greenland, opinions were divided on the statue of Egede, which had already been tagged in the 1970s, and again in 2012 and 2015.[47] An online referendum was held from 3 to 21 July 2020 on the question of keeping the statue: approximately 23,000 of Greenland's 56,000 inhabitants were eligible to vote. Participation was very low with only 1,521 participants, and more than 60% voted in favor of keeping the statue.[49][50][51] The mayor of Nuuk, Charlotte Ludvigsen, endorsed the citizens' decision, but the debate did not cease following the referendum, as shown by a petition calling for the removal of the statue of "this man who symbolizes the trauma experienced by Greenlanders".[52]

Spain

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Race Day

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Commemorating the anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Bahamas in October 12, 1492 had been called "Race Day" since 1917, in reference to the Ibero-American "race".[53][54]

In Spain, where October 12 is a national holiday, the spokesman for the Podemos party, Pablo Iglesias, claimed not to celebrate October 12.[55] Similarly, the former mayor of Barcelona, ​​Ada Colau, considered that "a state that celebrates a genocide should be ashamed", and the mayor of Cádiz affirmed: "We never discovered America, we massacred and subjugated a continent and its cultures in the name of God. There is nothing to celebrate".[56]

France

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Toponymy

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France's colonial history has marked public space in a significant way through place names. This toponymy is sometimes criticized, either because it conveys racist stereotypes (e.g.: La Négresse district), or because it glorifies people involved in colonial crimes.[57][58]

Name of Cayenne airport
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See also: Cayenne – Félix Eboué Airport

Since its construction in 1943 by the Americans until 2012, Cayenne Airport was called "Rochambeau", in reference to Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau, commander of the French troops who participated in the American Revolutionary War. This tribute created controversy due to the homonymy with the son of the airport's dedicatee, Donatien de Rochambeau, who during the Saint-Domingue expedition had harshly repressed the Haitian Revolution.[59] In 1999, the deputy of French Guyana Christiane Taubira requested a name change. After the rejection of the proposal of the name of the 17th century Indigenous American chief Cépérou, it was finally the name of Félix Éboué, colonial administrator and resistance fighter born in Guyana, which was retained. The change became official in January 2012.[60]

Name of the district “La Négresse” in Biarritz
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In Biarritz, a district has been called "La Négresse" since the end of the 19th century  (previously it had the Basque name of Harausta). Its name refers to the waitress of an inn, who was a former slave from the Antilles,[57] at a time when the nearby port of Bayonne was involved in the Atlantic slave trade. The name of the district first caused public shock in 1994, when the city hosted a Franco-African summit. The mayor at the time, Didier Borotra (UDF), suggested to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Alain Juppé, that it be removed. Following the latter's refusal,[61] the plaques relating to the district were still temporarily obscured.[62]

Then, in March 2013, considering that the name recalled the era of slavery, the socialist elected representative of Biarritz, Galéry Gourret, asked the municipal council and the mayor Didier Borotra (MoDem) that the district be renamed.[63] After consulting the district councils, the majority of which were in favor of the status quo, the municipal council rejected the request.[64]

In 2015, following a banner announcing the "Negresse Festival" and displaying a stereotypical drawing of a black woman, the debate over the connotation of the name spread across the nation.[65] Alain Jakubowicz, president of the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, then requested that the district be renamed, but the request, deemed "ridiculous" by the mayor Michel Veunac (MoDem), was again rejected.[66]

Name changes began to be decided. The SNCF changed the name of the Biarritz train station (formerly Biarritz-La Négresse station). Similarly, on Boulevard Marcel Dassault, the Biarritz - La Négresse bus stop became the Viaduc - Gare de Biarritz stop in 2018. However, the district and many shops and places kept the controversial name.[61]

The claim was relaunched in 2019 by the essayist and activist Karfa Diallo, accompanied by the former elected official from Biarritz Galéry Gourret and members of the association Mémoires et Partages. On the meeting of the G7 in Biarritz on August 22, 2019, they organized an event in front of the city's train station to alert residents about the name of the district "La Négresse",[67] considering that it has a racist and sexist connotation, and constitutes an offense and a humiliation towards black people. The association demanded either that the district revert to the original Basque name Harausta still used by older Basque speakers,[68] or that the town hall install explanatory plaques. The town hall rejected the request, on the grounds that it did not come from a local association and claims that the name of the district constituted a tribute to the black woman who ran the inn.[69] However, the campaign began to receive more and more support, notably from the Biarritz elected representative Lysiann Brao (EELV), the Bayonne writer Marie Darrieussecq, the sociologist Marie-France Malonga, and the historian Jean-Yves Mollier.[69]

Faced with the municipality's refusal to move forward on this issue, the Mémoires et Partages association initiated proceedings with the Pau Administrative Court to force the municipality to reverse the "illegal" deliberations that gave the name "La Négresse" to the district and the street in the commune.[70]

In August 2021, the new owners of the pharmacy, formerly called “pharmacy de la Négresse”, removed the word “Négresse” from their storefront.[71]

Street names
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In metropolitan France
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Some names of public roads (odonyms) contain references to colonial history, but are criticized when they pay homage to slave traders (shipowners or captains) or slave owners (planters or supporters of slavery). The demands of anti-racist and anti-colonialist associations are varied. This may involve the request for the installation of explanatory plaques or a change of name.[58][72][73][74]

In 2009, the association Mémoires & Partages, founded by Karfa Diallo, launched a public campaign entitled "Rename the streets of slave traders?".[58][72] This campaign aimed above all to open the debate, hence the question mark at the end of its slogan, on the streets honoring slave traders by their names in the five main French slave ports: Nantes, La Rochelle, Le Havre, Bordeaux, and Marseille. From the beginning, the association's campaign suggested either renaming the streets honoring criminals (in light of the Taubira law of 2001), or at least putting up explanatory plaques, an idea that Karfa Diallo had already presented in 2005 to the Tillinac Committee in Bordeaux, but which had been rejected.[73]

This long-term campaign, relaunched several times during the municipal elections, began to show results when, in 2020, the city of Bordeaux finally decided to install explanatory plaques in five streets bearing the names of slave ship owners (Gradis, Desse, Féger, Gramont, and Mareilhac).[74] While Karfa Diallo welcomed this encouraging gesture, he wanted the city hall to go further by also taking an interest in streets bearing the names of slave traders (people who owned colonial plantations and their slaves, or who promoted slavery).[75] In May 2022, he obtained the addition of an explanatory plaque to rue Colbert.[76]

The city of Nantes gave its agreement in 2018 to install explanatory plaques,[77] then reversed its decision in 2020,[78] before finally granting this request in 2023.[79]

In 2021, twenty years after the Taubira law, the city of La Rochelle agreed, after several refusals, to expand certain street signs in order to mention the link between their names and the slave trade.[80] The city of Le Havre has also committed to doing so by announcing in 2023 the creation of a trail of six personalities from Le Havre who participated in slavery, and six personalities who criticized it, with the installation of explanatory panels under the street signs.[81]

Overseas
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In Réunion, there are many streets honoring slave traders (Lory, Chateauvieux, Kerveguen, Villèle, Ozoux, Dioret Cambourg, Decaen, Hubert Delisle, and Mahy).[82] Since 2014, activist Christophe Barret, who calls himself "Kaf Yab le Maronèr", has been asking that the streets of Saint-Paul, the cradle of the island's settlement, be renamed by the municipal council.[83] According to him, "the names of individuals or legal entities who contributed to establishing the slave system in Réunion should be removed from the pediments of our streets, our schools and all public spaces". In the absence of a response, the activist then made fake plaques that he hung on those already in place. Then, on the night of Saturday, August 22, 2015, on the eve of the commemoration of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition[84] while accompanied by a dozen people, he proceeded to unscrew the plaques of five roads in the city: the Chaussée Royale and the streets Labourdonnais, Colbert, Jacob de la Haye, and Compagnie des Indes. He proposed replacing them with figures of slavery: "for the old rue de la Compagnie des Indes I propose the Caze sisters. Two Malagasy women who arrived with others in Saint-Paul in 1663 with Louis Payen. For rue Labourdonnais I suggest Élie, slave leader of the Saint-Leu revolt in 1811. For the Chaussée Royale, Niama, Senegalese princess, freed slave and mother of the scholar Lislet Geoffroy. For rue Colbert: Enchaing and Éva. For Rue Jacob in The Hague: Louise Siarane, grandmother of a large number of Reunion Islanders." For its part, the town hall described this action as "irresponsible and absurd." On the other hand, Ghislaine Bessière, president of the Rasine Kaf association, supported Christophe Barret in his fight, even if she advocated for a different approach: "We must not erase history but explain that people like Mahé de Labourdonnais, Colbert, and many others played an active part in the organization of slavery. This must be said and written. We cannot present them only in their positive light." She also hoped that the city can find "a balance in the naming of streets and public buildings. Take the Boulevard Sud in Saint-Denis, whose route passes through several slave camps. It would be fair to name this road with reference to this historical aspect. The origins of the Reunion Islanders must not be hidden."[83]

In October 2020, “rue Christophe-Colomb” in Cayenne, Guyana, was renamed to “rue des Peuples-autochtones” by the municipal authorities, in order to pay tribute to the Indigenous peoples of Guyana.[85]

Statues and monuments

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Overseas
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In Martinique, many statues inherited from the colonial era have been the target of anti-colonial activists.[86][87]

The statue of Empress Joséphine, in particular, has been criticized because of the nature of the figure, a white Creole whose family owned a slave plantation, and who is suspected of having played a role in Napoleon's reestablishment of slavery in 1802. Already, during the redevelopment of the Jardin de la Savane in 1974, Aimé Césaire's municipal administration had chosen to move the statue to the western edge of the park, without its large granite base and ornate gate, to make it less visible as a response to the resentment of a notable section of the population.[86] Then, in September 1991, the statue was decapitated by an anonymous commando and, although listed as a historic monument the following year, the statue was left as it was for 29 years until July 26, 2020,[88] when the statue was unbolted and burned by activists from the anti-colonial collective Rouge-Vert-Noir.[89]

At the same time, the statue of Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, chief colonizer of Martinique in 1635, was also unbolted with a grinder, before being dragged through the streets of Fort-de-France on the end of a rope.[89]

Similarly, statues of Victor Schœlcher, in Fort-de-France and Schœlcher, were criticized and attacked. First degraded, with a hand cut off on one and numerous graffiti tags for the other,[87] they were finally unbolted and completely destroyed on May 22, 2020 by anti-colonial activists. Activists claimed that even if Victor Schœlcher was the Secretary of State for the Colonies who signed the decree definitively abolishing slavery in France in 1848, the tributes paid to him were still criticized for being excessive, and for exclusively representing a paternalistic and Eurocentric point of view of abolition, eclipsing the struggles of slaves for their freedom. Similarly, this abolition of 1848, unlike the previous one of 1794, was accompanied by compensation for slave owners,[90] while no reparation was provided for the slaves themselves.[91] It is for the same reasons that the statue of Victor Schœlcher in Cayenne, Guyana, was also vandalized several times by activists until it was toppled in 2020.[92]

In Reunion Island, Prefect Jérôme Filippini, Mayor of Saint-Denis Ericka Bareigts, and General Laurent Cluzel, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the Southern Indian Ocean Zone (FAZSOI), announced on April 26, 2023 that the monumental statue of Mahé de Labourdonnais, which had stood since 1856 on the Place du Gouvernement in Saint-Denis, would be unbolted and installed at the Lambert barracks alongside other monuments of Reunion's military heritage.[93] This monument was widely criticized because of the homage it payed to a great slave-owning colonizer. According to Ericka Bareigts, the aim is to "restore this place to its historical truth", considering that when slavery was finally abolished in 1848, the statue had not yet been installed in this place, the very place where freedom was celebrated.[93] This project, which responded to the grievances of many associations, has encountered strong opposition.[94] In particular, for the historian Prosper Ève, the choice of the Lambert barracks for the installation of the statue will constitute a tribute to the military exploits of the former governor, and will highlight "the sailor that we want to highlight, not the slave trader".[93]

In New Caledonia, the statue of Jean-Baptiste Léon Olry, governor of New Caledonia from 1878 to 1880, has been controversial since the 1970s.[95] Olry had violently suppressed the revolt of the Kanak leader Ataï in 1878.[95] In 1974, the bas-relief representing the submission of the rebels to the governor was removed from his statue, and petitions were circulating at the time calling for the statue to be removed.[95] In November 2016, the Collectif des Cercles des libres-penseurs kanak sent a letter to the Minister of Overseas Territories requesting the removal of the controversial monument, which had been in place since 1894.[96] In 2020, the Nouméa city council decided to rename Olry Square to Place de la Paix, in homage to the handshake of the Matignon Accords between MP Jacques Lafleur and Kanak independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou on June 26, 1988.[97] In 2021, the statue of Olry left its location in the center of the city of Noumea to join the gardens of the city museum.[95] On June 26, 2022, the statue of the handshake between Jacques Lafleur and Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the work of the artist Fred Fichet, was unveiled on Place de la Paix in the presence of Isabelle Lafleur, the daughter of the former MP, Marie-Claude Tjibaou, the widow of the independence leader, and the mayor of Nouméa.[98]

Metropolitan France
[edit]

Several statues and monuments located in metropolitan France were also the target of anti-racist activists.[99][100]

In Saint-Malo, the statue of Robert Surcouf was sprayed with red paint on May 10, 2019, the day of remembrance of slavery and the slave trade. The famous privateer is also one of the most important slave traders in the city.[99]

On June 21, 2020, the monument to General Faidherbe, located in Lille, was covered with the words "colon" and "assassin", as well as "Senegal", "Algeria" and "Kabylie". The day before, a demonstration with the slogan Faidherbe must fall demanded its removal from public spaces.[101] On the banners and placards were the slogans: "I am not Faidherbe", "My ch'ti heritage is not colonialist", or "Who wants to celebrate colonialism (again)? 200 years is enough. Faidherbe must fall". General Louis Faidherbe is particularly criticized for having been a violent colonizer of Senegal and Algeria, and a promoter of racist theories.[102] These reasons caused a collective to demand since 2018 that the town hall review the many tributes paid to him in the city (such as a statue, a street, and a high school).[103] For the journalist Jean-François Rabot, the town hall must at the very least, if it fails to "remove the statue to place it in a museum", affix "an explanatory plaque".[104]

On June 23, 2020, the monumental statue of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, located in front of the National Assembly in Paris, was sprayed with red paint and covered with the inscription "state negrophobia". The author of the degradation was the Guadeloupean activist Franco Lollia, spokesperson for the Brigade anti-négrophobie, a collective that has been denouncing the monument since 2015.[100] The latter, erected in 1808 under the First Empire six years after the reestablishment of slavery by Napoleon, is accused of glorifying the author of the Code noir, a text commissioned by Louis XIV which regulates the rights of the owner over his slave.[100] The trial was held on May 10, 2021, twenty years to the day after the vote of the Taubira law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity. The activist was then sentenced to a fine of €500, plus €1,040 in damages to be paid to the National Assembly for material damage.[105] Franco Lollia and his lawyers have appealed, and are also preparing to "officially request the removal of the statue of Colbert in front of the National Assembly from the state authorities" and to "sue the authorities for condoning crimes against humanity."[105]

Cultural products and commercial signs

[edit]

Public space is also made up of commercial signs, popular traditions, or cultural products that can include offensive references to colonial-era stereotypes.

Au nègre joyeux
[edit]

The Au nègre joyeux commercial sign in Paris has had its facade subjected to stones and paint. Its removal was requested by associations, which in 2011 questioned Frédéric Mitterrand, then the Minister of Culture.[106] At the request of the communist group in the Paris Council, on, September 26, 2017, it was decided to remove the sign.[107] Removed in 2018, it is now kept at the Carnavalet Museum, dedicated to the history of Paris, in one of the two "sign" rooms, accompanied by an explanatory poster written by a scientific committee formed in 2018.[108]

Café Négro
[edit]

Similarly, the Café Négro in Bayonne was renamed Kafe Beltza in February 2021.[109] Then, the following August, the Négresse pharmacy in Biarritz removed the problematic mention from its sign.[110]

Tête-de-nègre
[edit]

Some gastronomic specialties also have references to the colonial era, with names whose words convey stereotypes. For example, the "tête-de-nègre", a famous chocolate pastry, is the subject of controversy due to the word "nègre" constituting a pejorative reminder of slavery, colonization and racism.[111][112] As a result, the treat is frequently renamed "tête-choco" or "tête au chocolat", in order to respect black people. A "tête-de-nègre" also refers to a liquorice candy representing an African mask, reminiscent of primitive African art. In Scandinavia and France, voices have been raised against these stereotypical representations, which are considered postcolonialist. The Haribo company, after having tried to rename these sweets "Melting pot", finally announced that they would completely stop their production in France in 2013, and stopping their production the following year in Sweden and Denmark.

Plantation Rum
[edit]

In 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Charente-based trading company Maison Ferrand began taking steps to change the trade name of its Plantation rum, which is the third best-selling brand in bars around the world, behind Bacardi and Havana Club. The company's management considered the term "plantation" to be a painful reminder of colonial slavery. After three years of administrative procedures, with the brand present all over the world, the rum changed its name to Planteray, a neologism celebrating the plant (plante) and solar (ray - ray of sunshine) dimensions of sugar cane.

The Netherlands

[edit]

Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629)

[edit]

In the Netherlands, the most controversial statue is that of the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587–1629) in the town of Hoorn.  Coen was responsible for Dutch slavery in Asia and in 1621 murdered nearly 15,000 inhabitants of the Banda Islands, who did not want to recognize the Dutch East India Company's monopoly on nutmeg: the Bandanese who survived the massacre were enslaved, forced to work in the first Dutch plantation colony, and founded Batavia.

In 2012, following a citizens' initiative, the municipality of Hoorn placed a plaque next to the statue bearing a text that refers to Coen's "very violent actions".

On 25 October 2016, an action group called "De Grauwe Eeuw" ("The Grey Century") wrote the word "Genocide" in red paint on the base of the Coen statue and also attacked the bust of the navigator and explorer Willem Bontekoe, stating on their Facebook page: "JP Coen and Bontekoe were two mass murderers in the service of the Dutch East India Company and unleashed their colonial terror on the population of the Dutch East Indies."

In 2020, historian Ethan Mark of Leiden University stated: "Someone like Jan Pieterszoon Coen, who slaughtered an entire island for profit... One wonders whether such a monument, as it stands today in Hoorn, is still appropriate."

The square where Coen's statue stands has been the scene of numerous demonstrations, with the Hoorn council of mayors and aldermen wishing to begin a reflection on the image and colonial past, racism, discrimination and social exclusion in the second half of 2023.

In 2016, the small political party Denk called for measures to be taken to "decolonise" street names, for example by removing the names of figures such as Michiel de Ruyter or Jan Pieterszoon Coen.

In 2018, the Jan Pieterszoon Coen School in Amsterdam changed its name to the ‘Indische Buurtschool’ (‘Indian Neighbourhood School’). The headmistress emphasized: "We are a multicultural and peaceful primary school. We want this to shine. The old name reminds us of a past that we want to teach and that we do not want to silence, but that we also do not want to propagate".

At the same time, action groups also lobbied for the Coentunnel near Amsterdam to change its name, but this was not done.

Pieter Stuyvesant (1592-1672)

[edit]

In the courtyard of the headquarters of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam stands a statue of Pieter Stuyvesant, director of the West India Company. Stuyvesant is controversial because of his actions in the 17th century: as administrator of Nieuw-Amsterdam (New Amsterdam, now New York), he directed the slave trade via Curaçao. He himself owned dozens of slaves, had a reputation as a harsh and intolerant ruler, and was also known as an anti-Semite.

Jewish associations have been fighting for years against the use of Stuyvesant's name in public places. For example, Peter Stuyvesant College in Curaçao changed its name in 2017 to "Kolegio profèsor doctor Alejandro Jandie Paula".

Johan Maurits (1604-1679)

[edit]

Another contested figure is Johan Maurits (1604-1679), after whom Maurits Street in Amsterdam and the Mauritshuis (Maurits House) in The Hague are named. Like other administrators of his time, he traded in human beings and owned slaves himself.

Paulus Godin (1615-1690)

[edit]

Femke Halsema, mayor of Amsterdam since 2018, lives in a house that was built in 1671 by Paulus Godin, director of the West India Company and director of the Suriname Company. Godin earned his money mainly from the slave trade: he shipped more than tens of thousands of slaves to the west. A plaque commemorating Paulus Godin's past has been placed near the front door of the mayor's house.

Jo van Heutsz (1851-1924)

[edit]

Jo van Heutsz, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), is estimated to be responsible for over a hundred thousand deaths: he subjected the people of Aceh province to a veritable bloodbath.

Already in 1966, the Van Heutsz monument in Amsterdam was the target of a militant attack.

Gandhi (1869-1948)

[edit]

In June 2020 in Amsterdam, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi was smeared with red paint and the word “racist” is written on its pedestal. Gandhi, who is best known for his nonviolent resistance to British rule in India, also lived and worked for several years in South Africa, where he campaigned for the civil rights of Indian migrants, a period during which he described black Africans with the racist term “kaffir”.

Maritime Heroes Quarter

[edit]

Professor of cultural history Lotte Jensen pointed out that few statues are removed in the Netherlands compared to other countries.  On the contrary, a new "Maritime Heroes' Quarter" ("Zeeheldenwijk") was created in the village of Urk in the province of Flevoland, where Frans Lucas Bauer, co-initiator of the project, says: "Send us everything they demolish. Then we will find a place for it."

Portugal

[edit]

Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of the Discoveries)

[edit]

In February 2021, the famous Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries), erected in 1960 by the fascist and colonialist regime of the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar on the banks of the Tagus River in the Belém district of Lisbon, was at the center of a debate in Portugal, when the socialist deputy Ascenco Simões recommended in the pages of the newspaper Público the destruction of the monument: "an element of the particular history that Salazar's Estado Novo has fabricated and that does not fit into a city that wants to be innovative and open to all societies and origins". He believed that "in a respectable country, the Monument to the Discoveries should have been demolished".

In August of the same year, the Monument to the Discoveries was spray-painted by a Parisian woman who wrote in broken English: "Blindly sailing for money, humanity is drowning in a scarlet sea." The president of the conservative CDS-PP party denounced "a real cultural terrorism" while the leader of the populist radical right party Chega denounced: "It is an attack on our entire history."

United Kingdom

[edit]

In the United Kingdom, despite some precedents, claims and actions only really exploded in intensity and frequency in 2020.

Statue of William Huskisson

[edit]

In 1982, a few months after the race riots in the Toxteh district of Liverpool, the statue of William Huskisson located on Princes Avenue was toppled by local activists. In 2005, it was erected again in another location in the city centre. Near the empty plinth of the first location, a plaque was placed in 2020, following the Black Lives Matter protests, to recall Huskisson's pro-slavery positions.

Statue of Edward Colston

[edit]

On May 25, 2020 in Bristol, a bronze statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston, erected in 1895 on a street named after him, was torn from its pedestal, pulled with ropes, trampled, and thrown into the water by protesters after the death of George Floyd. The mayor of Bristol said the statue itself was an affront, and that he felt no sense of loss after the crowd’s action. Labour MP Clive Lewis tweeted: “If statues of Confederates who fought a war for slavery and white supremacy are to come down, why not this one? Someone who is responsible for immeasurable blood and suffering. We will never solve structural racism until we confront our history in all its complexity.”

According to Matthew Parris, the mob that tore down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol was right, and they did not erase history, as some claim, they wrote it.

Statue of Winston Churchill

[edit]

On June 7 in London, the inscription "He was a racist" was spray-painted on the pedestal of a statue of Winston Churchill, a World War II statesman whose various statements on racial issues have caused controversy including his views on Muslims and calling Afghans or Iraqis uncivilized tribes.

Cecil Rhodes Statue

[edit]

On the façade of one of the main buildings of Oriel College, Oxford, is a statue of one of its former students, Cecil Rhodes. Having made his fortune in the mines of southern Africa, it was his bequest that enabled the construction of the building. With the development of post-colonial studies, this tribute has been criticized because of Rhodes' personality and reputation as a white supremacist and symbol of British imperialism at the end of the 19th century. During a demonstration on June 9, 2020 in Oxford, activists threatened to attack the statue of Cecil Rhodes which dominates the entrance to Oriel College: "Rhodes, you're next on the list"  .

Despite the protests and an initial consensus in favor of a removal in 2020, the university chose the following year, for cost reasons, not to remove the statue, as it had committed to doing. However, an explanatory plaque was added.

London Monuments Review Commission

[edit]

Following these events, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that he would set up a commission to conduct a general review of the city's monuments, statues and toponymy: it would be called the "Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm".

Swiss

[edit]

Related article: Colonial history of Switzerland . Switzerland, as a state, has never had a colony, but it is still considered a colonial power by many citizens. For example, the triangular trade functioned thanks to investments by Swiss banks, and 40% of the "slave trade" was covered by Swiss insurance. The family of the founder of Credit Suisse, Alfred Escher, owned slave coffee plantations in Cuba. As a result, the country also experienced turmoil over colonial statues.

David de Pury (1709-1786) from Neuchâtel was a shareholder in the Portuguese company Pernambuco e Paraiba, created in 1759, whose activity was linked to the slave trade for Brazilian plantations. He died without an heir in 1786 in Lisbon and bequeathed his fortune to his hometown, which was then embellished with a new Town Hall, several schools, and the Latin College. In 1855, the City erected a bronze statue in homage to its benefactor, the work of the French sculptor David d'Angers.

In June 2020, a petition was launched in Neuchâtel to demand the removal of the statue of David de Pury due to the city's benefactor being accused of slavery. The petition, with 2,500 signatures collected online, was submitted to the city authorities on July 17, 2020. Its text calls for its replacement with a commemorative plaque.

On the night of July 12-13, 2020, the bronze statue was stained with red paint, an act claimed by a French-speaking ultra-left website.

On October 27, 2022, an ironic sculpture by Geneva artist Mathias Pfund was inaugurated next to the controversial statue: called "Great in the concrete", the bronze sculpture on a concrete base shows David de Pury upside down, his head stuck in his base. An explanatory plaque is placed in front of the statue of the merchant, with twelve translations accessible by QR code.

However, on December 21, 2022, the sculpture showing David de Pury with his head in the concrete was in turn stained with red paint, without it being known whether this was a simple act of vandalism or an act motivated by a cause.

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