French bankers and insurers are far from being as transparent

Besides Lloyd’s and the Bank of England, other major British companies have begun a similar process of introspection about their slave past. NatWest, which counts among its origins around a hundred banks dating from the 17the and the 18the century, has put part of its archives from the time online, recognizing its links with slavery, in particular through loans granted to plantation owners.

Also read the survey: Article reserved for our subscribers At Lloyd’s, the British insurance market, a dive into the archives of slavery

This transparency is new. In 2011, the Liverpool Museum, which had just opened, decided to look into the link between the English port city and slavery. He had exhibited two photos of the National Bank of Liverpool and Parr’s Bank, distant ancestors of NatWest. The caption emphasized that “many Liverpool bankers were also merchants who owned slave ships”. NatWest had asked to remove the images.

In France, this transparency is not currently being studied. “To my knowledge, no approach similar to that of Lloyd’s has been undertaken by French companies”testifies Pierre-Yves Bocquet, the deputy director of the Foundation for the Memory of Slavery, created in 2019. However, he emphasizes, “things are bubbling in research”And “there is a lot of interest from civil society”.

But for now, the private sector is blocking. Is it the fear of political exposure, and of provoking “antiwoke” counterattacks? Or proof that the management staffs of large French companies are not very open to diversity and are hardly interested in the subject?

Ancestors of current companies

“However, French colonial history is at least as rich as that of the United Kingdom”, insists Mr. Bocquet. In total, in the sordid count of transatlantic slavery, kept by the site slavevoyages.org, Portugal is the first country responsible, with more than 5.8 million human beings transported between 1501 and 1866, the United Kingdom , the second, with more than 3.2 million, and France, the third, with almost 1.4 million. The ancestors of current companies were necessarily involved in this traffic.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Delving into the Lloyd’s slavery archives: how researchers and artists attempted to humanize slaves reduced to numbers

BNP Paribas acquired the Bank of the Netherlands, created before the effective abolition of slavery in the Dutch colonies in 1873, as well as the Bank of Guyana, created by levying compensation paid to French slave owners in 1849. BPCE includes among its ancestors the banks of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Reunion, created by levying compensation paid to French slave owners in 1849.

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