FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron recognised on Thursday for the first time the killing of west African soldiers by the French army in 1944 as a massacre.

The long-awaited admission from France came in a letter addressed to the Senegalese authorities and on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the World War II killings in Thiaroye — a fishing village on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital Dakar.

It also comes as France’s influence is declining across Africa, with Paris being ousted from its former colonies.