PARIS -- Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean called for heightened sensitivity toward racism Saturday as she wrapped up a five-day official visit that infuriated Quebec separatists and generated lavish French praise for the way she symbolizes Canadian-style multiculturalism.
Jean, the great-great-granddaughter of French-owned Haitian slaves, delivered her speech on race relations in Bordeaux, the port city that was the centre of the lucrative French slave trade.
The speech came on a day when yet another French media outlet found colourful new adjectives to describe a woman who has been called Canada's "almost Queen" and a cross between Barack Obama and Halle Berry.
She's the "very photogenic icon of Canadian multiculturalism," raved the right-of-centre Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro.
Jean told her Bordeaux audience that the millions of kidnapped Africans sent in French ships to work on French plantations in the Caribbean were victims of a "complete disregard" for humanity.
"As the Governor General of Canada, I have come to ensure that their memory -- as much their suffering as their freedom -- is not lost in the expanse of time, and to proclaim for all to hear that human beings are not defined by the labels they are forced to wear," she said.
"As a black woman from the Americas, I urge you to listen to all those who, today and everywhere, are committed to loosening the grip of prejudice and breaking the chains of injustice and tyranny."
She told Le Figaro she wants to see a "solidarity pact" between all Canadians.
"We must put an end to the narrow-mindedness of the 'each for his own, each for his clan,' and institute a solidarity pact between all the citizens who form today's Canada," she said.
-- Canwest News Service
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