France/Martinique

Césaire buried with full honours in Fort-de-France

Article published on the 2008-04-20 Latest update 2008-04-21 10:41 TU

Aimé Césaire's coffin in Martinique
(Photo : Reuters)

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and other top French politicians attended the funeral Sunday of poet and politician Aimé Césaire, who was 94. One of the pioneers of black consciousness in the French-speaking world, Césaire was a pioneering campaigner against racism, founded the Martinique Progressive Party and was mayor of Fort-de-France for 56 years.

Sarkozy was accompanied by National Assembly President Bernard Accoyer, as well as a number of ministers, including Culture Minister Christine Albanel and Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade.

Foreign dignitaries present included Senegalese Culture Minister Mame Biram and Skerrit Roosevelt, the prime minister of  neighbouring Dominica,

In the 1930s, Césaire coined the term "négritude" - black pride in one's African roots - along with Léopold Sédar Senghor, a Senegalese poet and politician and Guyanese Léon-Gontran Damas, also a poet and politician.

 

"Papa Césaire" as he was fondly called, lay in state Friday night in Dillon stadium in Fort-de-France as thousands of Martiniquais paid their last respects. The words of surrealist writer André Breton, calling Césaire "the prototype of human dignity", were placed by the dead man's portrait in the stadium.

 Malians also paid their last respects to Césaire in Bamako, where films were projected in remembrance of him.