CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP
Emmanuel Macron, in the company of Cameroonian president Paul Biya during a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied landing in Provence during the Second World War.
International – Official mail. In a letter sent to his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya, French president Emmanuel Macron officially recognized that France had led “A war” in Cameroon against insurrectional movements before and after the independence of 1960, marked at the time by “Repressive violence”.
This first memorial turning point between the two countries, made public this Tuesday, August 12, allows the French head of state to endorse the conclusions of a report of historians who had been given to him last January. This report made ” Clearly emerge that a war had taken place in Cameroon, during which the colonial authorities and the French army exercised repressive violence of a multiple nature “.
Using this word so far absent from the official French speech several times concerning Cameroon, Emmanuel Macron adds that “War continued beyond 1960 with the support of France to the actions carried out by the independent Cameroonian authorities”. “It is up to me to assume today the role and responsibility of France in these events”adds Emmanuel Macron, in this letter dated July 30.
Memory policy
The report of this commission, chaired by historian Karine Ramondy, is part of the memory policy of President Macron vis-à-vis Africa, following similar reports on Rwanda and Algeria, other dark pages of French politics in Africa.
As a reminder, it was in July 2022 that the French president announced in Cameroon the launch of work of a mixed Franco-Cameroonian commission aimed at shedding light on the fight of France against independence and opposition to Cameroon between 1945 and 1971.
The report on Cameroon and the research called to extend it “Will allow us to continue building the future together, to strengthen the close relationship that unites France and Cameroon, with its human ties between our civil societies and our youth”also evokes Emmanuel Macron, when the Cameroonian president formalized his intention to run for an eighth term to the presidential election scheduled for October 12. And this, at the age of 92.