“Is it right that Parisian streets bear the names of slavers and generals who made racist remarks?” asks a book to be published next month, whose Communist authors hope to launch an all-out war on the riot-plagued French capital’s heritage.
The Guide to Colonial Paris lists 200 streets in Paris named after French men who were linked to the slave trade, or who helped build the nation’s empire, among whom are “so-called explorers, ministers … writers, scientists, industrialists, bankers, and so-called adventurers”.
Their presence on plaques is “intolerable”, according to a sample chapter from the book released ahead of its publication, which argues that street names which “celebrate conquests and colonial rapine” are guilty of sending “subliminal reminders” of historic French domination of other countries.
“France has a problem dealing with its history,” said retired doctor and self-proclaimed Marxist-Revolutionary ‘militant‘ Patrick Silberstein, who co-authored the book with fellow Communist Didier Epsztajn, frustrated that campaigns to “decolonise” France have previously failed to gather any real momentum.
“We don’t want to rewrite history, but to present another version of history which is that of anti-colonialism, of decolonisation,” he added, while speaking with The Telegraph about the guide.
One figure named is that of 19th-century statesman Léon Gambetta, who escaped from besieged Paris by hot air balloon in the Franco-Prussian war before leading efforts rallying France to carry on the fight.
“His impassioned oratory could not bring victory, but his efforts did help to save national honour and self-respect in defeat, and for this he has remained a national hero,” noted the 2004 Encyclopedia of World Biography.
Names suggested by the Guide to Colonial Paris, to replace figures like Gambetta on the city’s streets and squares include Hocine Belaïd — a Communist militant who was shot dead by police in 1952 — and Creole activist Lucidor Corbin, who wrote “Anthem of the Citizens of Colour” to the tune of France’s national anthem.
While Paris is regularly plagued with riots carried out largely by leftist activists or the descendants of its former colonies, the campaign to destroy and rename slavery and colonialism-linked monuments and streets of the nation’s past is minute in scale compared to similar movements in the U.S.
A campaign was set up in Britain last month demanding the name of four-time British prime minister William Gladstone be removed from a University of Liverpool building.
The crusade was launched after students learnt the liberal 19th-century leader had a “racially marred legacy” after a visit to the city’s International Slavery Museum which — as Breitbart London has detailed in reports — peddles history that is revisionist and anti-white.