French justice ordered the city of Biarritz on Thursday to rename its district of “La Negresse”, “a racist and sexist nickname” according to the association Memoirs and Shares which had seized it.
The administrative court of appeal of Bordeaux, in the southwest of the country, “judges that, whatever the supposed origin of this appellation and its historical dimension claimed by the commune of Biarritz, the term” the negress “evokes today, in a devaluing way, the racial origin of a woman whose identity has not been formally identified”.
It points to a word “likely to harm the dignity of the human person” which can be perceived by the population, “whether resident or passing, as having an offensive character towards people of African origin”.
Several hundred slave expeditions are part of the southwest of France, notably Bordeaux, towards Africa between the 17ᵉ and the 19th century.
The Bordeaux association Memoirs and Shares, which promotes the work of memory on colonization and slavery, had asked the right mayor of Biarritz Maider Arosteguy to repeal two deliberations of 1861 and 1986 having baptized with the name “La Negress” a district and a street in the city.
“Insulting connotation”
According to historians, the term “the negress” was awarded to this district by Napoleonic soldiers at the beginning of the 19th century due to the presence of an inn held “by a very brown woman”. Other sources attribute the origin of the term to the Gascon expression “Lane Gresse”, designating a land of clay present in this part of the commune.
The elected official having refused, the association had seized the administrative court which had also rejected its appeal by a judgment of December 21, 2023. She then appealed this decision.
“Consequently, the Court cancels the decision attacked and enjoined the mayor of the municipality of Biarritz to seize, within three months, the municipal council, the only competent to decide to modify the name of a place located in the territory of the municipality, so that it proceeds to the repeal of deliberations” in question, specifies the judicial body.
At the hearing, on January 16, the public rapporteur, whose opinion is generally followed, had estimated that “semantic evolution” of the word gives him today an “insulting connotation” which could “undermine human dignity”.
