The French National Assembly voted on Thursday, May 23, 2026, to repeal the Code Noir, a colonial-era law that classified enslaved people as property [1].

This legislative action removes a legal vestige of the transatlantic slave trade from the French books. By eliminating the statute, the government aims to align national law with contemporary human-rights standards, and formally disavow the legal framework that permitted chattel slavery [2].

The vote in the National Assembly chamber in Paris was unanimous, with a final count of 254-0 [3]. The Code Noir was originally enacted in 1685 [4]. For centuries, this legal framework governed the lives of enslaved people in French colonies, stripping them of their humanity and legal standing.

Historical records indicate that approximately 1.4 million Africans were enslaved under the provisions of the Code Noir [5]. The law provided the legal basis for treating humans as movable property, which allowed for their sale, transport, and exploitation across the French empire.

Lawmakers said the repeal was necessary to remove an outdated statute that treated humans as chattel [2]. While France had long since abolished slavery in practice, the formal repeal of the 1685 code serves as a symbolic and legal conclusion to the colonial era's legal architecture [6].

“The National Assembly voted unanimously to repeal the Code Noir.”

The repeal of the Code Noir represents a formal legal decoupling of the modern French state from the institutionalized slavery of its colonial past. While the law was functionally obsolete, its continued existence on the books was a point of contention for human rights advocates. This move signals a broader effort by the French government to address colonial legacies through legislative scrubbing.