French Abolition Memorial Begins Construction

19th century French abolitionist Senator Victor Schoelcher is indirectly in the news this week, as France's city of Nantes is undertaking the construction of a large memorial near a pedestrian footbridge named in his honor.

The memorial is not dedicated to senator Schoelcher per se, but rather to the 1848 abolition of slavery in France's colonies, the movement he played such a large role in bringing to fruition.

There will be two parts to the abolition memorial; one, an esplanade walkway along the Loire river, several miles long, aligned with 2,000 stones, each bearing the name of a French ship that had participated in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The riverside trail will connect the forementioned Victor Schoelcher footbridge and the Anne-de-Bretagne bridge. A second, wooden pathway, described as a "meditative route", will be constructed on the slope just below the Quai de la Fosse.

This branch of the memorial has some controversy attached to it: significant work, at great cost, will have to be done to shore up the riverbank to secure the ground for the 426 foot pathway, in a section of the river prone to periodic flooding. Officials admit that it is likely that the expensive pathway will be submerged under water, and therefore closed to the public, several times a year.

The city says that a "closing protocol" is being established, where it will be someone's job every Monday morning to determined whether or not to leave open or to close the pathway to pedestrian traffic, depending on weather conditions and tidal predictions projected for that week.

The entire memorial project is expected to be completed in 2011.

[Translated from an article in the French online newspaper Press Ocean]

It's great to recognize historical events that remind us of our ability to change for the better, as from such signs we may find encouragement that such progress may continue in our own time, through our own efforts.

But: one can't help wishing that more of that money might instead be directed towards curbing slavery in modern-day France instead...

[image of the Pont Anne-de-Bretagne and my best guess for where the memorial project will be built, courtesy of Googlemaps]