French President Emmanuel Macron has resisted calls to take down statues with links to colonialism and slavery, vowing not to erase history.
"The republic will erase no trace or names of its history, (...) it will overturn no statue," Macron said in a televised address on Sunday, resisting pressure from anti-racism activists to tear down statues considered offensive.
While renowned for his discipline in keeping a degree of solvency in French state finances despite the Sun King's extravagance, Colbert is also the man who drafted the Code Noir, or Black Code, that regulated the conditions for slavery in French colonies.
Other statues to people with links to France's colonial past and slavery have also been placed under police protection.
Colbert's statue and others like his are offensive because they "celebrate the men who made their countries rich through the slave trade," admits historian Pascal Blanchard, a specialist on France's colonial history.
