Oppressors shamed in guide to colonial Paris

View on Paris. Photo / 123RF

A band of French activists plan to draw attention to their country's colonial and slave-trading past through a street guide to Paris.

Patrick Silberstein, a retired doctor, and Didier Epsztajn, an activist, will next month publish their Guide to Colonial Paris. The booklet lists 200 streets named after far-flung places that were conquered by the French, honour men who helped build an empire that stretched from the Americas to the Far East, or who were linked to the slave trade which helped make France rich.

"We don't want to rewrite history, but to present another version of history which is that of anti-colonialism, of decolonisation," said Silberstein.

One street that, for Silberstein and fellow activists, must unequivocally be renamed is Avenue Bugeaud in the upmarket 16th arrondissement.

Thomas Robert Bugeaud was France's first governor-general of Algeria whose subjugation of the country in the 19th century was marked by "scorched earth" tactics of burning locals' crops, demolishing their villages, and slaughtering those who resisted.

While Emmanuel Macron was campaigning for the presidential election earlier this year, he sparked controversy by saying, during a visit to Algeria, that France's colonial rule was a "crime against humanity".

Critics point out that anyone using Bugeaud's tactics in today's world would be likely to face trial. Yet his name still adorns a chic avenue in Paris.

The Elysee, Macron's office, said it was not ready to comment on whether the President favoured renaming streets in Paris or other cities which honour men who inflicted violence.

Street naming is the responsibility of town halls in France. Paris city hall did not respond when asked if there were any plans to change names of certain streets in the capital.

The campaign to rename streets or remove statues in France is tiny in scale compared with similar movements in the United States, where a woman died during protests in August in Charlottesville over plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Many Americans view the general as a symbol of racism and America's slaveholding history.

In Britain, the campaign to remove names of colonialists or slave trade sympathisers from public buildings and monuments included a high-profile bid to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oxford University.

A minor campaign in France last northern summer — inspired by plans to remove statues of Lee in some US towns — to have statues of Bugeaud removed from provincial French towns, soon fizzled out. "France has a problem dealing with its history," said Silberstein.