Guadeloupe officials welcome France’s review of disputed law
POINTE-A-PITRE, Guadeloupe (AP) – Guadeloupe officials welcomed France’s decision yesterday to rewrite a disputed law requiring textbook publishers to put a positive spin on the country’s colonial past.
The law, which was passed by the conservative-led parliament last February, has caused outrage in France’s former colonial empire.
French President Jacques Chirac, yesterday said the law that ordered school textbooks to highlight the positive role of France’s colonial past, was dividing the French and should be revamped.
Victorin Lurel, a deputy for Guadeloupe, a Caribbean island of 420,000 people, said he was satisfied with Chirac’s response, but he regretted “how late and how timid” it had been.
“The only solution is purely and simply to abolish this shameful law,” said Lurel, also the Socialist Party’s national secretary for oversees territories.
About 30 groups from Martinique, Guadeloupe and former French colonies in Africa intended to protest next Feb. 23 – the one-year anniversary of the law’s passage, Lurel said in a statement.
Prominent Guadeloupe historian Frederic Regent told local radio station RCI that reforming the law was “a rather positive reaction,” though he and other historians would “remain vigilant.”
Chirac said National Assembly President Jean-Louis Debre would propose a bill “to rewrite this text and find language that unites and soothes peoples’ minds.”
More than 1,000 people joined a demonstration in Martinique one month ago, demanding that France repeal the law. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy also cancelled a planned visit to Martinique and Guadeloupe before that demonstration after residents of the islands said they would protest during his visit.
