Macron admits to France’s ‘repressive violence’ during Cameroon’s push for independence

French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged France’s role in “repressive violence” during Cameroon’s push for independence in a letter to the country’s president made public on Tuesday. The acknowledgement follows a French government report from January that detailed mass displacement and brutal crackdowns, notably in the 1950s.

In a letter to Cameroonian President Paul Biya made public by the French presidency on Tuesday, Macron acknowledged that France waged a “war” against independence efforts in Cameroon that was marked by “repressive violence” in the years after World War II.

Sent to Biya last month, Macron’s letter follows an officially commissioned report published in January that found France had implemented mass forced displacement, pushed hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians into internment camps and supported brutal militias to squash the central African country’s push for sovereignty.

“The historians of the commission made it very clear that there was a war in Cameroon, during which the colonial authorities and the French army carried out repressive violence of several kinds in certain parts of the country in a war that continued after 1960 when France supported the actions carried out by the independent Cameroon authorities,” Macron said in the letter.

“It is incumbent on me today to accept France’s role and responsibility in these events,” he wrote.

Macron announced the creation of a historical commission during a 2022 trip to the Cameroonian capital Yaounde.

Composed of both French and Cameroonian historians, the 14-person committee looked into France’s role in the country between 1945 and 1971 based on declassified archives, eyewitness accounts and field surveys.

Most of Cameroon came under French rule in 1918 after the defeat of its previous colonial ruler, Germany, during World War I.

But a brutal conflict unfolded when the country began pushing for its independence following World War II, a move France repressed violently, according to the report’s findings.

Between 1956 and 1961, France’s fight against Cameroonian independence claimed “tens of thousands of lives” and left hundreds of thousands displaced, the historians said.

For many in France, the war in Cameroon went unnoticed because it mainly involved troops from colonies in Africa and was overshadowed by the French fight during Algeria’s 1954-1962 war of independence.

Even after Cameroon gained independent in 1960, Paris remained deeply involved in its governance, working closely with the “authoritarian and autocratic” government of Ahmadou Ahidjo, who stayed in power until 1982.

Biya, who has been in office since that year, is only the second president in Cameroon’s history.

At age 92 and already the world’s oldest head of state, Biya will seek an eighth term in office in a presidential election in October.

Cameroon’s opposition is struggling to challenge Biya, who has been accused by groups such as Human Rights Watch of suppressing opponents.

Cameroon’s constitutional court last week rejected the candidacy of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, Biya’s main opponent, in a decision Kamto called “arbitrary”.

Macron said that France would facilitate access to its archives so that researchers could build on the commission’s findings.

He also suggested the creation of a bilateral “working group” to help monitor progress in ongoing research and education.

Macron has taken tentative steps to come to terms with once-taboo aspects of France’s historical record, though many argue he has not gone far enough.

A 2021 report concluded France bore “overwhelming responsibilities” in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and a 2020 review examining France’s actions during Algeria’s war of independence called for a “truth commission” and other conciliatory actions.

Macron has, however, ruled out any official apology for torture and other abuses carried out by French troops in Algeria.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)