Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, France’s most prominent black politician, is not the sort of woman who needs defending. But when she was publicly subjected to a racist slur for the third time in barely a month on Wednesday, it sparked howls of outrage and renewed soul-searching across the country.
The latest racist attack on Taubira appeared on the cover of the far right weekly magazine, Minute, which featured a photograph of the 61-year-old black politician with the title, “Crafty as a monkey, Taubira gets her banana back”.
In French, the phrase, “to get your banana back” also means putting a smile back on your face.
The word-play was not appreciated across large swathes of French society – particularly because it was the third time the French politician has been compared to a monkey in recent weeks.
