The statue of Hubert Lyautey, who served in Morocco, Algeria, Madagascar and Indochina when they were under French control, is offered with red painting Monday, June 22. Two Paris statues related to France’s colonial era were daubed with red paint Monday amid a global movement to take down monuments to figures tied to slavery or colonialism. One statue was of Hubert Lyautey, near the gold-domed Invalides monument that houses Napoleon’s tomb. Lyautey served in Morocco, Algeria, Madagascar and Indochina when they were under French control, and later was France’s minister of war during World War I. The other figure drenched in red shows Voltaire, a leading thinker and writer of the French Enlightenment, who owed part of his fortune to colonial-era trade.

Source: The Standard June 22, 2020 10:18 UTC