Sarkozy denounces slavery on 160th anniversary of abolition

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — President Nicolas Sarkozy denounced Saturday what he called the crime against humanity that is slavery, as blacks protested against ongoing prejudice 160 years after slavery's abolition by France.

Sarkozy said millions throughout the world remain "victims of the slave trade, deprived of their liberty and subjected to brutal conditions of exploitation".

Speaking at a ceremony commemorating the French abolition of slavery in 1848, he recalled the "suffering that slavery caused, the wounds it left in men's souls (and) the deep wound that still weighs on consciences".

Sarkozy used the occasion to comment on cyclone-ravaged Myanmar, where he said an "eminently condemnable regime" was preventing the distribution of relief supplies to those who had...