Twenty members of the government were present around Emmanuel Macron, at the Luxembourg Garden for the 17th National Day of Trade Memories, Slavery and their abolitions, Tuesday.
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The ceremony was simple and sober. For this 17 e national day of the memories of the trafficking, slavery and their abolitions which was held Tuesday May 10 in the Garden of Luxembourg, there was no big speech . There was not even any at all. The word had been left to young people, 400 from all over France, and in particular to the pupils winners of the price of the flame of equality, competition intended to carry out with the students of primary and secondary a reflection on the history of drafts and slavery.
These, with emotion and gravity, paid tribute to the victims of slavery and to some great figures symbols of the struggle for their emancipation, such as “mulatto solitude”, former Guadeloupeal slave executed in 1802 in the aftermath of his Childbirth for having taken part in the revolt against the restoration of slavery by Napoleon Bonaparte.
No speech, not even from the President of the recently re -elected Republic, Emmanuel Macron, who chaired for the fourth time this commemoration ceremony, surrounded by the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, of the President of the Foundation for the Memory of ‘Slavery, former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. No less than twenty ministers and secretaries of state and two former prime ministers – in addition to Mr. Ayrault, Manuel Valls -, argued the places of honor.
For many current members of the finishing government – Jean Castex planned a farewell dinner Thursday evening in Matignon – it was probably the last official outing. And as their agendas are desperately relaxed, while waiting to move their boxes, it was also the last opportunity to show themselves alongside the President of the Republic, or even remember to his attention. Never commemorate the memory of slavery had known such a ministerial crowd. It is never too late to do well.