Les Colonnes de la Liberté

A stele called 'les Colonnes de la liberté' ('The Columns of Liberty'), dedicated to the memory of the enslaved and the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, was officially inaugurated on 12th May 2012 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-bois in Essonne in the Toussaint-Louverture Square. In 1998, a monument to the memory of slavery was erected in this very commune, but in July 2011, its inhabitants learned that the monument would have to be repositioned as it was located in a site reserved for social housing. It was therefore destroyed, but when the moment came for its reconstruction, it was discovered that it did not feature in the Land Registry plans. The Mayor, Olivier Leonardt (Parti Socialiste), recognised this as a 'screw-up' and allowed the new monument to be reconstructed in the same square (Toussaint Louverture).