“The slave who challenged his masters : Furcy, born free before the law”

The third episode of Season 3 of Séries Noires à la Une: la presse et le crime (the press and crime), a podcast by RetroNews, the press website of the BnF (French National Library).

“No-one in France may be a slave”: it was in the name of this basic principle of public law that the man referred to by certain journalists of the time as ‘the slave Furcy’ succeeded in claiming his freedom. The issue was indeed that of claiming his liberty and not his emancipation, since the question eventually raised was whether Furcy had ever really been a slave, even for one day?’ Also, what was revealed by his being maintained a slave?

The legal historian Jérémy Boutier is interviewed by Thomas Baumgartner to discuss the issue.

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