Unknown people painted graffiti on the monument to the French statesman, Finance Minister in the government of Louis XIV Jean-Baptiste Colbert, which is located near the building of the National Assembly of France in Paris, the newspaper Figaro, citing a police source.
The incident occurred on Tuesday evening. According to a source, an unknown person made an inscription on the pedestal in red paint accusing the country’s authorities of “Negrophobia.” According to the publication, the attacker was arrested.
As the publication notes, Colbert, a historical figure, is also known as one of the initiators of the so-called “Black code,” which legally regulated slavery in the French colonies. Against the backdrop of protests against racism around the world in France, calls to dismantle the monument to Colbert have once again sounded.
Some statues were removed by the decision of the authorities or spontaneously demolished in recent weeks in many countries amid mass protests after the death of African-American George Floyd at the hands of police. This affected monuments to soldiers and generals of the slave-owning South during the American Civil war, as well as statues of the discoverer of America, Christopher Columbus, whom left-wing activists accuse of the genocide of the Native American population.
