Cameroon President Paul Biya (left) and France's President Emmanuel Macron shake hands prior to bilateral talks at the Lyon's congress hall, France, October 10, 2019
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged historic committed by his country’s forces in Cameroon from 1945-71.
His comments follow a joint report by Cameroonian and French historians examining France’s suppression of independence movements over the period.
In a letter to Cameroonian President Paul Biya, made public on Tuesday, Mr Macron said the report made clear “a war had taken place in Cameroon, during which the colonial authorities and French army exercised repressive violence of several kinds in certain regions.”
“It is up to me today to assume the role and responsibility of France in these events,” he wrote.
Mr Macron stopped short of issuing a formal apology and did not mention reparations.
Historians estimate that tens of thousands were killed, with hundreds of thousands forced into internment camps and militias deployed to crush the west African nation’s struggle against colonialism.
France formally acknowledged for the first time last year that its soldiers had carried out a “massacre” in Senegal, killing west African troops in 1944.
Mr Macron has also previously recognised France’s role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which about 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
ROGER McKENZIE reports on the west African country, under its new anti-imperialist government, taking up the case for compensation for colonial-era massacres
