A French activist for black rights has gone on trial in Paris for defacing a statue of a historical figure from France’s colonial, slave-trading past, calling the protest a political act to denounce deep-seated racism. Franco Lollia is on trial for spraying “state Negrophobia” in red paint on the pedestal of a statue outside parliament in Paris last June. The statue honours Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a 17th-century royal minister who wrote rules governing slaves in France’s overseas colonies. His lawyer Georges-Emmanuel Germany said the judge should consider France’s past behaviour as “a criminal state” in weighing Lollia’s act. “Colbert is a major figure of this colonial past, this past where black people were not recognised as human beings,” he said.

Source: Irish Independent May 10, 2021 12:45 UTC