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The article explores the place of reparations for slavery in the contemporary politics and culture of France and the French-speaking Caribbean. Considerable attention has recently been paid to the recent decision of CARICOM leaders to set up a reparations commission, but similar questions relating to slavery and its (financial) afterlives have also been raised (and remain equally unresolved) in the Francophone world. In a press conference in Dakar in October 2012, François Hollande answered questions about the subject: "La réparation", he claimed, "elle n'est pas que morale, elle est aussi de savoir ce que nous voulons faire ensemble." (Weider, Thomas. "Couacs entre l'Elysée et Matignon sur les traites négrières." Le Monde. 14 October 2012). In the wake of these comments, legal action was launched in France by the group CRAN (Conseil représentatif des associations noires) against the Caisse des dépôts, itself accused of profiting from compensation paid by Haiti to the French state from 1825 onwards. The article draws on speeches by Sarkozy and Hollande as well as recent publications by the CRAN in order to locate reparations for slavery within the wider geopolitical, historical, and memorial context of the Francosphere. In conclusion, it will analyse one of the few cultural artefacts to address the question of reparations for slavery, the controversial 2011 comedy Case départ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent international growth of interest in Haiti, there has been an increased focus on the ways in which the narratives and impact of the Haitian Revolution have travelled beyond their historical and geographical points of origin. Researchers have explored the ways in which the Revolution has been actively “used” or instrumentalized in often very different cultural and ideological niches. This article asks whether interpretations of the Revolution have always been localized, and shaped by the clear national contexts in which they occur, or whether it is possible (and indeed helpful) to evoke a type of transnational or even global iconicity that sees the leader of the Revolution, Toussaint Louverture, adopted as a cipher for the wider understandings of Haiti in a global frame. Underlying this analysis is a comparison—often made but rarely scrutinized—between Louverture and Che Guevara. The article concludes with a consideration of the ways in which the status of Toussaint as a revolutionary icon in a global frame has acquired renewed intensity in recent years, but has arguably at the same time taken a new turn, as the focused implications of this iconicity for anti-colonial struggle and postcolonial reflection have lost their specificity and risked being diluted into generality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until recent years and with several notable exceptions, there appears to have been relatively little interest in Haiti among scholars in the field of francophone studies. The article takes this apparent absence as its starting point, and explores the possible ramifications of a renewed attention to Haitian history and culture for studies of francophone postcoloniality. Central to the discussion is a series of French and British representations of the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture, dating from around the time of their subject's death in 1803, that have received only rare critical attention. The article suggests that any study of a ‘postcolonial’ Toussaint, evident in the work of authors such as Aimé Césaire, Bernard Dadié, René Depestre, Edouard Glissant and Jean Métellus, should take these earlier representations into account in order to elaborate a more complex account of francophone history and culture. The conclusion develops this reflection on the association of the colonial and postcolonial by suggesting the ways in which a renewed awareness of the implications of the Haitian Revolution might impact on postcolonial analyses of France itself. A quelques exceptions près, les chercheurs dans le domaine des études francophones se sont relativement peu intéressés jusqu'à une époque récente à Haïti. Adoptant cette absence d'attention en guise de point de départ, cet article met en relief les implications possibles pour l'étude du ‘fait postcolonial’ francophone d'un renouveau d'intérêt dans la littérature et la culture haïtiennes. L'étude est centrée sur une série de représentations françaises et britanniques du leader de la révolution à Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture – représentations qui datent de l'époque de la mort de leur sujet en 1803, mais qui n'ont que rarement attiré une attention critique. Selon l'article, toute étude d'un Toussaint ‘postcolonial’ – chez des auteurs tels que Aimé Césaire, Bernard Dadié, René Depestre, Edouard Glissant et Jean Métellus – doit se rendre compte des représentations antérieures afin d'esquisser une version plus complexe des histoires et des cultures de l'espace francophone. Cette réflexion sur les rapports qui relient le colonial au post-colonial se développe dans la conclusion de l'article, où l'on démontre l'impact considérable de la révolution haïtienne sur une analyse postcoloniale de la France elle-même. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]