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INPRIMATU
The racist name of the 'La Negresse' district in Biarritz will continue, by decision of the Court of Pau
  • The judges had the last word and they gave it: The district of La Negresse will remain so after the decision of the Administrative Court of Pau, in accordance with the opinion of the City of Biarritz. The process of name change was initiated by the association Mémoires et Partages (Memories and Compartments) for being "racist and sexist".
Urko Apaolaza Avila @urkoapaolaza 2023ko abenduaren 22a

The Pau court’s rapporteur paved the way for the judges and they have decided: they say that La Negresse is not “against human dignity”. It is the name given by the Casa Consistorial to the well-known neighbourhood next to the railway station in Biarritz, and for the association Mémoires et Partages it is both racist and sexist.

The Negresse is the alias that Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers had put on a host that served there in the 19th century. In 1986, the Casa Consistorial withdrew the original Harausta in Basque and placed that official name in the neighborhood.

The association Mémoires et Partages started a judicial way to change this name. The association has done a great deal of work not only in the Northern Basque Country, but also in Bordeaux, La Rochelle and Nantes to highlight or modify the footprints related to slavery and colonialist racism.

The Audience says that "from the perspective of memory" the name was changed to the neighborhood and not to the black community to "stigmatize for racist reasons". But the members of Mémoires et Partages believe it today: "It shows criminal history," Karfa Sira Diallo told Ipar Euskal Herriko Hitza. Diallo was tried for denouncing this name on the eve of the G7 summit.

The case of the name of La Negresse has as a vindictive symbol in the decolonialist movement. Thus, Mémoires et Partages will appeal the Pau agreement to the Bordeaux Administrative Tribunal, as Berria explained.

The City Hall of Biarritz, for its part, has pointed out that it does not intend to remove the name because for most sorcerers it does not have "contagious racism", but in 2024 they want to install a plaque relating the history of the maid of the 19th century.