France’s President Emmanuel Macron has formally recognised what he known as France’s “repressive violence” in Cameroon during and after the country’s battle for independence in the unhurried Fifties – a uncommon admission of a long-skipped over segment of France’s colonial historical previous.
In a letter to Cameroonian President Paul Biya, printed on Tuesday nonetheless despatched final month, Macron described the wrestle as a “war” and licensed France’s “role and responsibility” in events that left tens of hundreds dreary and millions displaced.
The observation follows a landmark philosophize in January by a joint historical payment, which stumbled on that France’s counter-insurgency marketing campaign included mass compelled displacement, internment camps and improve for violent militias.
The violence continued after Cameroon’s formal independence on 1 January 1960.
Macron launched the payment during a 2022 test with to Yaoundé, tasking 14 French and Cameroonian historians with reviewing the duration between 1945 and 1971.
Drawing on declassified archives, peek testimonies and field be taught, the neighborhood painted a stark image of France’s efforts to suppress the growing independence motion after World War II.
While most of Cameroon came below French encourage watch over in 1918, following Germany’s defeat in World War I, nationalist calls for intensified after 1945.
Macron begins first Africa stagger of most standard term with test with to Cameroon
Forgotten wrestle
According to the philosophize, between 1956 and 1961 France’s defense power marketing campaign claimed “tens of thousands” of lives.
For many in France, the wrestle barely registered at the time. Now not like Algeria’s 1954-1962 independence wrestle, it involved principally African troops and remained largely out of public glimpse.
But Paris maintained shut ties with Cameroon’s first post-independence leader, Ahmadou Ahidjo, whose authoritarian rule lasted until 1982.
Biya – now 92 and the enviornment’s oldest head of tell – has been in power ever since.
He is seeking an eighth term in October’s presidential election, despite the truth that opposition hopes were dealt a blow – final week the constitutional court docket rejected the candidacy of Maurice Kamto, his main challenger.
Cameroon’s President Biya, 92, proclaims reveal for eighth term in characteristic of business
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Colonial reckoning
Reaction to Macron’s letter in Cameroon has been mixed. Mathieu Njassep, head of the Affiliation of Cameroonian Veterans, welcomed the acknowledgement nonetheless stated France must “go further” and possess in mind reparations.
Macron did now now not address compensation in his letter, nonetheless pledged to open France’s archives to researchers and proposed a original bilateral working neighborhood to video show growth in be taught and schooling.
The pass fits into Macron’s broader – and most frequently contentious – system to confronting France’s colonial previous. In most standard years he has backed studies on France’s actions during Algeria’s wrestle of independence and the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
These studies indulge in acknowledged “overwhelming responsibilities” nonetheless stopped wanting formal apologies, something Macron has ruled out in the Algerian case.
