Paris votes to remove chocolate factory's 'Happy Negro' sign

The Paris council voted on Monday to remove the sign “To the Happy Negro” (“Au Nègre Joyeux”) from the city’s former chocolate factory of the same name, after the Communists in the council branded the façade an “insulting and offensive presence”.

The local authority decided to move the sign from the former factory in the French capital’s 5th arrondissement – near the Sorboe University and Luxembourg Gardens – to the Carnavalet Museum on the other side of the Seine, which is dedicated to the history of Paris.

A painting showing a black servant or slave alongside a white woman of high society – which has provoked numerous indignant polemics – will also be removed from the site to be put on display at the Carnavalet.

Despite sharp divides on the issue, the Paris council passed the Communists’ motion to take away a sign they see as recalling the “crimes of slavery”, as Communist councillor Raphaëlle Primet put it.

The Communists in the French capital’s local authority are allow calling for the city to create a museum of slavery.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Date created : 2017-09-26