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A French court has ruled that the seaside city of Biarritz must rename its La Negresse historic district, possibly named after a black woman, after a case brought by activists who argued it was an outdated legacy of colonialism.
The ruling caps a long-running attempt by activists to force authorities in the resort on the Atlantic coast to drop what they say are “racist and sexist” placenames.
The activists want city officials to rename the La Negresse district as well as one of the city’s streets, rue de la Negresse.
La Negresse is the feminine version of the French word for negro (negre), translating into English as “negro woman”.
In 2020, the Memoires et Partages (Memories and Sharing) association that fights legacies of slavery and colonialism asked Biarritz’s mayor, Maïder Arosteguy, to consider scrapping the names.
The town hall refused, prompting the activists to launch legal proceedings.
The district is believed to be named after a black woman, possibly a former enslaved person, who worked in an inn there in the 19th century. Activists say the moniker is associated with a crime against humanity in which millions of Africans were deported to work as enslaved people on colonial plantations.
On Thursday, the Bordeaux administrative court of appeal sided with the association. The court said in a statement that the origin of the name was not clear.
The court said, citing historians, that the neighbourhood previously known as “Harausta hamlet” might have been named after a “very dark-skinned woman” running a local inn. Other sources attribute the origin of the name to a Gascon expression referring to clay soil found locally, the statement said.
The court ruled that, whatever the supposed origin of the name, “the term ‘La Negresse’ today evokes, in a demeaning way, the racial origin of a woman whose identity has not been formally identified.”
The term is “thus likely to undermine the dignity of the human person” and may be perceived “as being offensive to people of African origin”.
In 2023, a court in the neighbouring town of Pau initially rejected the association’s request.
The earlier ruling acknowledged the evolution of the term “towards a pejorative connotation” but said that the names could not be seen as “an attack on the principle of safeguarding human dignity”. The association then appealed.
In 2001, France formally recognised the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity.
