The Court of Cassation, France's highest court of appeal, has rejected a claim for reparations to be paid to the descendants of people enslaved under the French empire. While France recognises slavery as a crime against humanity, it has so far denied all requests to compensate the relatives of victims.
The appeal was brought by three associations and 23 individual plaintiffs, mostly based in the French overseas territory of Martinique, who argued that slavery had caused "transgenerational harm".
