These déboulonnages occur nearly two months after the one of two statues of Victor Schoelcher in Martinique by this same group of activists.

a statue of Joséphine de Beauharnais and of Pierre Belain d’esnambuc landed Sunday in Fort-de-France by a handful of activists in the anti-colonial, has found an AFP journalist. The representations of these characters controversial have been put to the bottom blows of mace and by means of ropes.

One of Joséphine de Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon 1st, and a native of Martinique, where his family had a farm, had already been beheaded there for nearly 30 years and left as well on the Savane square in Fort-de-France. On Sunday, the demonstrators were then placed on a pyre, said a police source.

a few meters away, the Pierre Belain d’esnambuc, who led the installation of the French colony in Martinique in 1635, has also been déboulonnée. It had been erected in 1935 on the occasion of the tercentenary of the beginning of the colonization in Martinique.

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“Inadmissible”

Since the middle of the week, the activists had already warned, in a video on the social networks, of their intention to debunk the statue of Joséphine de Beauharnais if this was not done by the municipality before Sunday. The d’esnambuc, meanwhile, was on the programme of the municipal council of Tuesday, which was to endorse his travel in August, but the activists have not wanted to wait.

READ ALSO >> Colonialism, slavery : should we rip down the statues are symbols of a painful past?

The prefect of Martinique, which, according to a police source, had given orders not to intervene, has condemned in a statement “the destruction which is the action not acceptable to a minority of violent”.

These déboulonnages occur nearly two months after the one of two statues of Victor Schoelcher in Martinique (may 22, 2020, the day of the abolition of slavery on the island) by these same activists.

In a tweet from the president of the Rassemblement national Marine Le Pen has reminded us that Emmanuel Macron promised last June 14 that”no statue will be déboulonnée”. “The Republic will not erase any trace or any name in its history”, had also said the head of State.

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