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An 86-year-old man has issued what is believed to be the first formal apology by someone in France for their family’s role in transatlantic slavery.

Pierre Guillon de Prince’s ancestors, based in Nantes, which was the country’s largest port for transatlantic slavery, were shipowners who transported about 4,500 enslaved Africans and owned plantations in the Caribbean.

Guillon de Prince said on Saturday that other French families must confront their historical allegiances to slavery and the state should go beyond symbolic gestures to address the past including through reparations.

He said: “Faced with the rise of racism in our society, I felt a responsibility not to let this past be erased.”

Guillon de Prince delivered the apology to a gathering in Nantes ahead of the inauguration of an 18-metre replica ship mast, alongside Dieudonné Boutrin, a descendant of enslaved people from the Caribbean island of Martinique.

The two work together at Coque Nomade Fraternité, an association dedicated to “breaking the silence” around slavery, and said the mast would serve as a “beacon of humanity”.

Boutrin, 61, said: “Many families of descendants of slave traders don’t dare speak out for fear of reopening old wounds and anger. Pierre’s apology is a courageous act.”

From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were abducted and forcibly transported, mostly on European ships. France trafficked an estimated 1.3 million people.

France recognised transatlantic slavery as a crime against humanity in 2001 but, like most European countries, has never formally apologised for its role.

During his terms in office, President Emmanuel Macron has expanded access to archives on France’s colonial past. Last year, he said he would establish a commission to examine France’s history with Haiti without mentioning reparations.

Last month, France abstained at the United Nations from an Africa-led resolution declaring slavery the “gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations.

In 2025, Lloyd’s Register, the maritime and industrial group owned by one of Britain’s biggest charities, apologised for its role in the trafficking of enslaved African people.

The company said: “We are deeply sorry for this part of our history. Acknowledging this legacy is important for our organisation, the descendants of those affected and those who still live with the consequences of this trafficking, and society as a whole.”

LR is unaffiliated to insurers Lloyd’s of London, which apologised for its role in enslavement in 2020.

In 2020, the Bank of England apologised for the involvement of some of its past governors and directors in the slave trade, and pledged to remove all statues and paintings of them from public display in its headquarters in London.

At least 25 governors and directors from the 18th and 19th centuries were or had been owners of enslaved people, or were linked to slave trading, according to a database compiled by University College London’s Legacies of British Slave Ownership project.

A Bank of England spokesperson told the Guardian at the time: “There can be no doubt that the 18th- and 19th-century slave trade was an unacceptable part of English history.

“As an institution, the Bank of England was never itself directly involved in the slave trade, but is aware of some inexcusable connections involving former governors and directors and apologises for them.”

The slave trade was abolished in 1807 across the British Empire, but the ownership of enslaved people was not finally abolished until 1833.

The British government paid £20m in compensation to the former owners of enslaved people, a vast sum of borrowed money at the time that was only finally repaid in 2015.