Since the assassination of George Floyd, statues celebrating slave-traders, colonialists and segregationists have been toppled all over the world. The Faidherbe Must Fall campaign has been calling for the removal of French colonial general Louis Faidherbe’s statues in Senegal and France. In this interview, Khadim Ndiaye (researcher in history and member of the Senegalese collective against the celebration of Faidherbe) and Salian Sylla, PhD, (an activist at Survie and the Faidherbe Must Fall collective) argue for the emancipation of public spaces from the glorification of a hideous past.