France Repeals Code Noir, Signs €10B Electrification Pact

The day's biggest legislative gesture was symbolic. The National Assembly voted 254 to 0 on Thursday to repeal the Code Noir, the series of 17th- and 18th-century royal edicts that classified enslaved people as "movable property" and were never formally struck from the statute book after slavery was abolished in 1848. The bill, introduced by Guadeloupean MP Max Mathiasin, now moves to the Senate. President Emmanuel Macron had endorsed it on 21 May, calling the laws' continued presence on the books "a form of offence." The vote does not change anyone's rights -- the Code's substantive effect ended nearly two centuries ago -- but it closes a gap that descendants of enslaved people and human-rights advocates have flagged for years.

The Élysée's economic centrepiece for the day was a national electrification pact signed earlier in the week and pushed publicly on Thursday. Macron gathered roughly 200 companies at the Élysée Palace to commit to doubling the share of domestically produced electricity in France's energy mix to 60 percent by 2030. The plan leans on private investment pledges from manufacturers and utilities rather than fresh budget allocations; the government will, however, double state support to €10 billion a year through the decade's end to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels, with a target of more than 600,000 jobs created or maintained.

France featured prominently in the other major story of the day at European level: the European Parliament's decision to ban AI services that "undress" people without consent, with safeguards required in EU-operating systems from December and member states given until 14 June 2027 to criminalise non-consensual sharing of intimate or AI-generated sexual images. RFI reported that French journalist Salomé Saqué had been targeted with pornographic deepfakes used as a weapon to "gag, denigrate and humiliate" her, the latest on what she called a "very long list of online violence." Paris lawyer Rachel-Flore Pardo, who specialises in cyber-harassment and gender-based and sexual violence, told RFI: "The whole dynamic of sexist and sexual cyberviolence is about silencing women and pushing them to exclude themselves from public space and public engagement. The consequences are self-censorship, withdrawal and fear." France's 2024 SREN law already punishes distribution of sexual content generated without consent with up to two years in prison and €60,000, rising to three years and €75,000 when shared online; Pardo said the question was no longer the law but "how it is applied and what resources are available for investigations." A 2025 European Parliament report cited a 16-fold rise in pornographic deepfakes shared online over two years.