France has made a key gesture of remembrance for the dozens of African troops shot dead on French army orders at the Thiaroye camp in Senegal during World War II. It comes as Paris seeks to ease tensions with former colonies over how their joint history is remembered.
On 1 December 1944, colonial troops and French gendarmes were ordered by French army officers to shoot at several dozen African troops at the military camp of Thiaroye near the Senegalese capital Dakar.
The riflemen – known as tirailleurs senegalais – had been repatriated after being held in German prisoner-of-war camps and were awaiting demobilisation.
They were shot dead after they mutinied, demanding that bonuses owing to them be paid and equal treatment with French soldiers.
Kept under wraps for decades, the killings were the subject of a 1988 film, Camp de Thiaroye, by Ousmane Sembène and Thierno Faty Sow.
Now, six of those soldiers – four from Senegal, one from Côte d’Ivoire and one from what is now Burkina Faso – have posthumously been honoured for having "died for France" ("morts pour la France").
An official from France's veterans and remembrance department said Sunday that the decision was part of the commemorations ahead of both the 80th anniversary of the liberation of France, in which colonial troops played a big role, and the 80th anniversary of the events in Thiaroye.
"This is a new step. It was essential. It is now time to look at this history, our history, as it was," the official told French news agency AFP.
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‘Big step’
The decision to remember the riflemen was taken on 18 June, just days before the first meeting in Paris between President Emmanuel Macron and the new Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
Aissata Seck, head of an association that aims to keep the memory of African "tirailleurs" alive, praised the move as "a big step" and said she “couldn’t see how France could fail to take this commemoration on board".
"Before being massacred at Thiaroye, these soldiers fought alongside French soldiers during the Second World War … They deserved to be recognised," she told RFI.
‘Salutary decision’
Samba Diop, a Senegalese historian who has been working on the Thiaroye massacre for 30 years, said the decision was "truly salutary".
"It’s first and foremost for the memory of these six identified infantrymen," he told RFI, "but also for their families who will be able to finally mourn after 79 years."
He hoped it would be possible to identify their graves and write epitaphs.
"This is a salutary decision for the entire West African community, even the African community overall. This fight has been going on for a very long time, and to my knowledge it's the most important step ever taken," he said.
According to the report drawn up by the French authorities at the time, at least 35 soldiers died on the spot or from their injuries, though some historians estimate the toll to be much higher.
"There’s still mystery around the number of deaths and the place where the victims were buried," historian Martin Mourre, a specialist on the tirailleurs, told RFI.
The French state now had the opportunity "to shed as much light as possible on what really happened," he noted.
Not France’s story to tell alone
But Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko had a different take.
In a lengthy post on social media platform X, he said this "tragic story" was not France's to tell alone.
It was not up to Paris to determine how many Africans were "betrayed and murdered" after having fought to save France, nor what reparations they deserved, he wrote.
He signed the post as leader of his party, Pastef, and not as head of the government.
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Look history in the face
Former president Francois Hollande ended years of denial over the Thiaroye massacre 10 years ago when he became the first French leader to pay tribute to the soldiers, recognising at least 70 dead.
In 2017, Hollande granted French citizenship to 28 African war veterans. And last year they were finally able to permanently return to their families on the African continent while keeping their pensions.
Through this latest gesture, Macron wished to "look history in the face", according to the veterans' department official, who added that this initial decision could be completed once the exact identity of other victims was established.
Since coming to power in 2017, Macron has sought to address the most painful historical scars over France's relationship with Africa, notably relating to the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence and the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
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However, critics have often said that the gestures, while welcome, do not go far enough.
"You can always say it’s too little, too late, but above all you should welcome it," historian Mourre remarks.
"The geopolitical situation between France and West Africa is complicated, so of course it's in the French government's interests to take this decision."
But the decision, he says, is "just as important for the African diaspora here in France, as for the African communities on the continent".
