Emmanuel Macron asked, on Tuesday July 26, historians of ” turn on the light “ on the action of France in Cameroon during colonization and after the independence of this country. Speaking at a press conference in Yaoundé with his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya, the French president also announced the opening ” In totality “ French archives on “painful times” et “tragic”.
“I wish that we can have and launch together a joint work of Cameroonian and French historians”proposed Mr. Macron. « I make here the solemn commitment to open our archives in their entirety to this group of historians who will allow us to shed light on this past.he said. “It is necessary to establish factually” of the “responsibilities”added the French president, considering that it was a “repressed subject” in France as in Cameroon.
He then specified that this commission could be “interdisciplinary”, as the Franco-Cameroonian Youth Council wishes, with which he discussed in the evening at the “village” created by tennis player Yannick Noah in Yaoundé. The commission could be set up within three months and submit its report within twenty-four months. The French president assured that means “will be made available” and that he would draw one « reconnaissance » of what happened and not a « repentance ».
Discussion “without any taboos”
After the defeat of Germany in 1918, the League of Nations (SDN, ancestor of the UN) had entrusted most of the German colony of Kamerun to the tutelage of France and the rest – the western part bordering Nigeria – United Kingdom. Before the country’s independence in 1960, the French authorities bloodily repressed the “maquis” Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), a nationalist party founded at the end of the 1940s and engaged in the armed struggle against the colonizer and his Cameroonian allies, particularly in the Bamileke country.
Several tens of thousands of pro-UPC activists, including the independence leader Ruben Um Nyobè, were massacred first by the French army, then after independence by the Cameroonian army of the Ahmadou Ahidjo regime. On Monday, a group of Cameroonian political parties called on Emmanuel Macron to recognize the “crimes of colonial France”.
During what was the last visit of a French president to Yaoundé, François Hollande had conceded in 2015 that there was “had extremely tormented, even tragic episodes”. “We are open so that history books can be opened and archives too”he added.
Emmanuel Macron arrived at the presidential palace at midday for an interview with Paul Biya, 89, who has ruled Cameroon with an iron fist for nearly forty years. He heard talking off-camera “without any taboo on all subjects”like that of the political transition which is looming due to the age of his counterpart, the Elysée had announced before the meeting.
Commitment to the security of the African continent
“We will not let go of the security of the African continent”, has, moreover, promised Emmanuel Macron a little earlier in the day, during a speech in front of the French community of Yaoundé. He thus reaffirmed his desire to “reinvent” the “military and security apparatus” French, particularly in the Sahel, while the last soldiers of the “Barkhane” operation must leave Mali at the end of the summer and be redeployed in the Sahelian zone.
“France will remain resolutely committed to the security of the continent in support and at the request of our African partners”argued the Head of State, before adding: “We will remain mobilized alongside the countries of the Lake Chad Basin to help them fight against the terrorists who have bereaved the far north of Cameroon for so many years”where Boko Haram is active.
During this speech, the Head of State also wanted to twist the necks of certain « carabistouilles » circulating in the context of the war in Ukraine on the African continent, while Sergei Lavrov, head of Russian diplomacy, is also visiting four countries on the continent.
“Food like energy have become Russian weapons of war”
“We are attacked by some who explain that European sanctions are the cause of the global food crisis, including in Africa. It’s totally false, it’s just that food and energy have become Russian weapons of war.he said, assuring that the European Union “wants to respond to the food emergency” affecting the African continent.
An implicit reference to the column published Monday by Mr. Lavrov in The Brazzaville Dispatchesthe only daily newspaper in the Republic of Congo, where the latter criticizes the European sanctions taken against his country, as well as « Western and Ukrainian propaganda, which claims that Russia is “exporting famine”” and boasts that Russia « n’[ait] not tarnished its reputation by bloody crimes of colonialism”. A meeting on food security was scheduled for the afternoon.
The tour started Monday evening by the Head of State on the African continent must continue, Wednesday, in Benin and, Thursday, in Guinea-Bissau.