France refuses to pay slavery reparations

[The Straight Story]

France refuses to pay slavery reparations

French President François Hollande announced on Friday that France would not be paying reparations for the role of the state-owned CDC bank in the slave trade, despite allegations that a €21 billion debt has crippled Haiti for centuries.

Hollande on Friday ruled out the payment of reparations for slavery as a rights group announced a suit against state-owned bank CDC over its role in the trade.

"What has been, has been," Hollande said in a speech to mark France's slavery remembrance day. "History cannot be rubbed out. It cannot be subjected to an accounting process that... would be impossible to complete."

France's Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN) announced it will on Monday be serving a writ on the bank CDC (Caisse des depots) over its role in the slave trade in general and events surrounding Haitian independence in particular.

http://www.thelocal.fr/page/view/france-refuses-to-pay-slavery-reparations#.UY7Vykr4KSo

[PDJane]

1. Anything I have to say about that would be loud, rude, and obscene.

[Archae]

2. "Slavery reparations" are a farce.

Who collects the money?
Who hands it out?

And to whom?

The only people who will get anything substancial from reparations will be lawyers.

[truebluegreen]

3. Haiti got to pay reparations...

to those poor unfortunate slave owners (i.e. the French) for the loss of their property...

The long and the short of it is that Haiti was paying reparations to France from 1825 until 1947," says Von Tunzelmann. "To come up with the money, it took out huge loans from American, German and French banks, at exorbitant rates of interest. By 1900, Haiti was spending about 80% of its national budget on loan repayments. It ­completely wrecked their economy. By the time the original reparations and interest were paid off, the place was basically destitute and trapped in a ­spiral of debt. Plus, a succession of leaders had more or less given up on trying to resolve Haiti's problems, and started looting it instead."

Do you think something like this shouldn't be addressed because it is just too hard?

[Archae]

4. Sure did the former slaves there a lot of good, right?

[Matariki]

6. Did you understand what Truebluegreen wrote?

What do you mean by your post? Are you saying the money that Haiti had to pay France didn't do any good for Haitians, because well, no kidding? Or what are you saying?

[Archae]

9. Except the French had records, (or said they did,) so it was clear who had lost what.

Now, just finding who would "owe" money would be a bureaucratic nightmare. At best.

And let alone FINDING the people "owed" that money...

No, reparations is an unrealistic pipe dream, and like I said, the only people who would benefit are the lawyers.

[Matariki]

10. I don't think you understand.

The country of Haiti paid France for 'compensation' for the loss of 'property' the French lost when the Haitians heroically overthrew their oppressors. That so called 'property' was in large part the Haitians themselves. Haiti got backed into a corner and was forced to pay. The country never really recovered from that, as Truebluegreen explained clearly.

Many people believe that France should return that money to Haiti as it was an unfair demand in the first place. It has nothing to do with 'finding' anyone.

[Matariki]

5. +1

[TampaAnimusVortex]

8. Indeed - the accounting for trying to reconcile slavery could go back thousands of years.

I cant even begin to imagine how complex it could get if one really wanted to take this principle to its logical conclusion.

[Nye Bevan]

7. My ancestors were enslaved by the Holy Roman Empire.

So I want a check from the government of Italy.