Ghana said France was open to having discussions with a coalition of countries that are calling for reparations for transatlantic slavery, following a meeting \u200blast week with President Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, accompanied \u200cby foreign minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and other officials, held talks with Macron in Paris on Wednesday last week.<\/p>\n
Ablakwa said on X after the meeting that Macron has indicated \u200bFrance was open to discussions on reparations, including the return of \u200blooted artefacts, addressing global economic inequities and dismantling structural racism.<\/p>\n
An official \u2060from \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace said on Sunday that both countries discussed France’s efforts \u200bto return culturally significant objects and human remains, as well as the legal \u200bframeworks around these restitutions.<\/p>\n
The official did not mention the additional measures cited by Ablakwa.<\/p>\n
The meeting followed the United Nations’ adoption last month of a\u00a0Ghana-led resolution\u00a0recognising slavery as the “gravest crime \u200bagainst humanity” and calling for reparations. France, along with other European countries, abstained.<\/p>\n
France’s \u200brepresentative at the U.N. said the abstention was due to concerns that the resolution appeared \u200cto “establish \u2060a hierarchy among crimes against humanity”.<\/p>\n
Ablakwa said that despite that abstention, Macron had said France was willing to have an “open and honest dialogue” on the matter.<\/p>\n
In 2001, France recognised transatlantic slavery as a crime against humanity. But, like most \u200bEuropean nations, it \u200bhas not formally \u2060apologised for its involvement or committed to reparations.<\/p>\n
From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were \u200bkidnapped and forcibly transported by mostly European ships and \u200bsold into \u2060slavery. France trafficked an estimated 1.3 million people, according to the Slave Voyages database.<\/p>\n
Last year, Macron said he would\u00a0set up a commission\u00a0to examine France’s past with \u2060Haiti.<\/p>\n
Longstanding \u200bcalls for reparations have\u00a0gained momentum worldwide\u00a0but so \u200bhas a\u00a0backlash, with critics arguing modern states should\u00a0not be held accountable\u00a0for historical wrongs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ghana said France was open to having discussions with a coalition of countries that are calling for reparations for transatlantic slavery, following a meeting \u200blast week with President Emmanuel Macron. Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, accompanied \u200cby foreign minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and other officials, held talks with Macron in Paris on Wednesday last week. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,34,27],"tags":[164,158,2858,5028,1462],"class_list":["post-20487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-society","category-west-africa","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-ghana","tag-john-dramani-mahama","tag-samuel-okudzeto-ablakwa","tag-slavery-reparations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20488,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20487\/revisions\/20488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}