Macron says France must address issue of reparations for its role in slave trade

Pierre Guillon de Princé, left, a descendant of slave-ship owners, and Dieudonné Boutrin, a descendant of enslaved Africans trafficked from Benin to Martinique, have called for a process of dialogue in France. Photograph: Thomas Louapre/The Guardian

Emmanuel Macron has said reparations for France’s role in hundreds of years of enslavement of African people is an issue that should be addressed, but he stopped short of making clear proposals.

“How to repair … is a question that must not be refused,” the French president said in a speech on the legacies of slavery at the Élysée Palace. “It’s also a question on which we must not make false promises.”