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A French court ruled on Thursday that the seaside city of Biarritz must rename its La Negresse historic district, possibly named after a black woman, following a case brought by activists who argued it was an outdated legacy of colonialism.
The ruling caps a long-running attempt by activists to force authorities in the resort on the Atlantic coast to drop what they say are “racist and sexist” place names.
The activists want city officials to rename the La Negresse district as well as one of the city’s streets, rue de la Negresse.
La Negresse is the feminine version of the French word for negro (negre), translating into English as “negro woman” or “negress”.
In 2019, the Memoires et Partages (Memories and Sharing) association that fights legacies of slavery and colonialism asked Biarritz Mayor Maider Arosteguy to consider scrapping the names.
The town hall refused in 2020, prompting the activists to launch legal proceedings.
The district is believed to be named after a black woman, possibly a former slave, who worked in an inn there in the 19th century.
Activists say the moniker is associated with a “crime against humanity that saw millions of Africans deported to work as slaves on colonial plantations”.
On Thursday, the Bordeaux administrative court of appeal sided with the association.
The court said in a statement that the origin of the name was not clear.
The court said, citing historians, that the neighbourhood previously known as “Harausta hamlet” might have been named after a “very dark-skinned woman” running a local inn.
Other sources attribute the origin of the name to a Gascon expression referring to clay soil found locally, the statement said.
– ‘Trivialisation of racism’ –
The court ruled that, whatever the supposed origin of the name, “the term ‘La Negresse’ today evokes, in a demeaning way, the racial origin of a woman whose identity has not been formally identified.”
The term is “thus likely to undermine the dignity of the human person” and may be perceived “as being offensive to people of African origin”.
Lawyers for the association said they were “delighted”.
“Renaming the neighbourhood ‘La Negresse’ was long overdue,” Colomba Grossi and William Bourdon said in a statement.
Karfa Diallo, the founder of the association, hailed the “historic” ruling.
“This is a triumph of republican values,” he said, adding that it was time to put an end to “the trivialisation of racism”.
The decision, he said, was all the more symbolic given that the mansion housing the court of appeal was also “marked by the history of slavery and the slave trade”.
The Hotel Nairac was built in 1777 by a Bordeaux family that deported Africans to America, according to the association.
In 2023, a court in the neighbouring town of Pau initially rejected the association’s request.
The earlier ruling acknowledged the evolution of the term “towards a pejorative connotation” but said that the names could not be seen as “an attack on the principle of safeguarding human dignity”. The association then appealed.
Slavery in France and its colonies was abolished in 1848.
In 2001, France formally recognised the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity.
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