“It is up to me to assume today the role and responsibility of France in these events,” said the head of state in a letter to his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya.
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He breaks a taboo. President Emmanuel Macron officially recognized that France had led “A war” In Cameroon against insurrectional movements before and after the independence of 1960, again pointing out its desire to introduce more transparency in French colonial history.
“It is up to me to assume today the role and responsibility of France in these events”underlined the head of state in a letter to his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya made public on Tuesday August 12, thus acting a memorial turning point between the two countries.
The French president endorses the conclusions of a report of historians who had been given to him in January and who has “Clearly highlights that a war had taken place in Cameroon, during which the colonial authorities and the French army exercised repressive violence of a multiple nature”.
The report of more than a thousand pages studies in particular the shift in the repression of the French colonial authorities to a real “guerre”. Taking place in the south and west of the country between 1956 and 1961, it undoubtedly made “Tens of thousands of victims”according to historians. In addition, adds Emmanuel Macron, “The war continued beyond 1960 with the support of France to the actions carried out by the independent Cameroonian authorities”.
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. Emmanuel Macron, who suggests the creation of a dedicated working group between Cameroon and France, “Gets to commit the French archives to be easily made accessible to allow the continuation of research work”.
