Activists on Thursday petitioned a French court to change the name of a neighbourhood and street in the seaside resort town of Biarritz over its racist connotations.

One of the southwestern town's districts has been officially called "The Negress" since 1861, while a road has been called "Negress Street" since 1986.

Anti-racism association Memoires et Partages (Memory and Sharing) says Napoleonic soldiers gave the district the nickname after a former enslaved woman who worked in an inn there.

The group says the words "negro" and "negress" were used "to designate a black person deprived of their humanity, the only way for European societies to render their enslavement morally acceptable".

"The terms thus carry the mark of a crime against humanity that saw millions of Africans deported so they could work as slaves in colonial plantations," it said.

Instead the association called for the neighbourhood to retake its old name of Harausta, which means "dusty quarter" in the regional Basque language.

read more: https://www.france24.com/en/france/20231207-french-activists-urge-biarritz-district-to-drop-racist-name