Tag: Francois Hollande

French President Macron Admits French Repression in Cameroon’s Independence Struggle

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great PeopleLeave a comment
Map of Cameroon, with the capital Yaoundé

This past Tuesday, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, acknowledged the violence committed by France in Cameroon during and after the country’s “independence” in 1960. The French repression of Cameroonian independence movements went from 1945 to 1971 and thousands of lives were taken, and the country set back several years back! Just imagine, hundreds of villages bombed with napalm! Unlike Vietnam, where people knew about this, in Cameroon, a country in central Africa, it was a total media blackout; and the silence went on for decades! This acknowledgment comes after the publication of a joint report by Cameroonian and French historians (France Delivers Classified Colonization Documents to Cameroon).

Metche Waterfalls in Cameroon was the site of French genocide there

In a letter to Cameroon’s President Paul Biya made public on Tuesday August 12, 2025, Macron said the report made clear “a war had taken place in Cameroon [like we did not already know that], during which the colonial authorities and the French army exercised repressive violence of several kinds in certain regions of the country… It is up to me today to assume the role and responsibility of France in these events” .

Why do we get this sentiment of déjà vu? Well, because in 2015, Francois Hollande, then French President Acknowledged French Genocide in Cameroon. Not too long ago, Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the massacre of Thiaroye (Thiaroye: A French Massacre in Senegal, A French Commission to investigate the Thiaroye Massacre ?), and the Algerian murders (France Admits Murder of Algerians … A Step Forward?), … but again fell short of apologizing. What next for Macron? An acknowledgment of the massacres in Madagascar? These French presidents are in the business of acknowledging, admitting, and then stopping short of apologies. Why bother?

Flag of Cameroon

Lastly, why is this acknowledgment coming now, in the middle of the electoral turmoil in Cameroon? when France could have simply said something, in good faith, to its puppets of Yaounde last week after the main opposition candidate’s name was removed from the election list? Or is this a way to distract people again? Why now, 10 years after Hollande… are they waiting for most of the survivors to die like for Thiaroye? At this point, it is safe to tell these French presidents to shove their “acknowledgments,” for they are meaningless!… Words, words… no action! It’s more a mockery of our pain!

To learn more check the articles in BBC and RFI. Excerpts below are from the BBC.

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French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged the violence committed by his country’s forces in Cameroon during and after the Central African nation’s struggle for independence.

… However, Macron fell short of offering a clear apology for the atrocities committed by French troops in its former colony, which gained independence in 1960.

UPC Leaders (L. to R.) front row: Castor Osende Afana, Abel Kingué, Ruben Um Nyobé, Felix Moumié, and Ernest Ouandié
UPC Leaders (L. to R.) front row: Castor Osende Afana, Abel Kingué, Ruben Um Nyobé, Felix Moumié, and Ernest Ouandié

The French leader cited four independence icons who were killed during military operations led by French forces, including Ruben Um Nyobe, the firebrand leader of the anti-colonialist UPC party [somehow they refused to acknowledge their hands in the murder of Félix Moumié in Geneva by one of their agents – talk of a case of selective amnesia!]. France pushed hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians into internment camps and supported brutal militias to quash the independence struggle, the AFP news agency quotes the report as saying. Tens of thousands of people were killed between 1956 and 1961, the historians’ report said.

… Commenting on Macron’s lack of apology, one of the historians who contributed to the report said it was their job to “establish the facts and figures after having gone through the archival documents” and not to “recommend apologies“.

… While Macron did not address calls for reparations, it is likely to be a key talking-point in Cameroon going forward [like after Hollande’s 2015 visit? – Bro… it has been 10 years already!]….

Poster commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Thiaroye Massacre (Source: Seneplus.com)

… Last year, [France] acknowledged for the first time that its soldiers had carried out a “massacre” in Senegal in which West African troops were killed in 1944. 

… France has also made several attempts over the years to reconcile with its former colony Algeria, but has stopped short of issuing a formal apology. In 2017, Macron, then a presidential candidate, described the colonisation of Algeria as a “crime against humanity“, but two years later, he said there would be no “repentance nor apologies” for it [See… in the business of acknowledging, but not apologizing].

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French President Acknowledges French Genocide in Cameroon

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments6 Comments

Francois Hollande, President of France
Francois Hollande, President of France

French flag
French flag

It took over 70 years for a French President to finally admit the genocide perpetrated in Cameroon by France between 1950 and 1970, a genocide which claimed over 400,000 lives, and displaced countless others. In his visit to Cameroon last Friday, French president François Hollande acknowledged that French forces had tried to quash colonial separatists in the 1950s and said he was ready to open up the history books. He said, “I recognize that there have been extremely traumatic and even tragic episodes.” Should we jubilate?

Ruben Um Nyobé
Ruben Um Nyobé

I say NO. It is true that this is somewhat a step forward: recognition of wrong done. However, I call it arrogance to wake up one day, and finally say, “Oh, yes, I killed your fathers, mothers, brothers, or sisters, … I showered many of your cities with Napalm, … I decapitated so many of your freedom fighters and hung their heads in the villages’ square, … I killed Ruben Um Nyobé, Felix-Roland Moumié, Castor Osende Afana, Ernest Ouandié, and so many others, … I forced some of you into exile, … and I displaced countless others inside and outside your borders.” And so what? Should we clap for you? where is the apology? Didn’t you think we knew you did that? Where is the reparation?

Decapitated Heads during the genocide in Cameroon
Maquisards’ heads during the genocide in Cameroon

During the Maquis years, many lost a loved one; is there a reparation for that loved one? that father who never saw his children grow up? that mother who never saw her son again? What about those who kept waiting, and waiting, hoping that after so many years the loved ones would come back home?… What about the pain of that young girl walking to school who had to watch the decapitation of ‘maquisards’ on the public place: she was scarred for life! What about those entire villages burnt with napalm? And those who were displaced internally from French Cameroon to British Cameroon, running for their dear lives and leaving behind their lands? What about Ruben Um Nyobé and his family? Felix-Roland Moumié, and his widow who suffered years of imprisonment in the harshest places? and Ernest Ouandié… and all the children who had to watch in horror as he took his last breath under the firing squad’s shots? What about the remaining population whose history was erased from textbooks, those who now have a gap in their past?

UPC Leaders (L. to R.) front row: Castor Osende Afana, Abel Kingué, Ruben Um Nyobé, Felix Moumié, and Ernest Ouandié
UPC Leaders (L. to R.) front row: Castor Osende Afana, Abel Kingué, Ruben Um Nyobé, Felix Moumié, and Ernest Ouandié

And to stand up there, and say “yes I recognize that we killed you”… it’s like Hitler waking up today, and telling Holocaust survivors and their descendants, “I killed you, jailed your parents, forced you into exile, brought fear into your souls, and decimated every part of you… what can you do?” It is simply arrogant! It is just too easy. Until there is a clear “I am sorry”, until there is a clear “here is what we will do to correct the wrong”, until there is a clear “arrest of all perpetrators”, until there is a clear “story in the history textbooks, opening of all the classified documents”…. until there is a clear “respect for those killed,” until then, there will be no respect for arrogant presidents of the hexagon in our dictionaries!

In 2013, the British government apologized for the massacre of the Mau-Mau in Kenya. We are waiting for France’s apologies for the Cameroonian genocide, and while we are at it, we will also expect France’s apologies for the Algerian and Malagasy massacres too.

‘Un ennemi de l’Afrique est tombé’ – Bye Bye Sarko

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments3 Comments

Nicolas Sarkozy battu
Nicolas Sarkozy battu

Avec la défaite de Nicolas Sarkozy battu Dimanche par Francois Hollande, j’ai trouvé bon de vous faire lire cet éditorial de Théophile Kouamouo du Nouveau Courrier. Je n’aurais pas pu mieux le formuler. Retrouvez l’intégralité de l’article sur Le blog de Théophile Kouamouo.

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L’Histoire retiendra que Nicolas Sarkozy aura été, après Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, le second président en exercice en France à perdre le pouvoir après un seul mandat. Comme Giscard, il laisse le pouvoir à la gauche, après avoir échoué à réunir les droites. Comme Giscard, il n’incarnait pas vraiment le gaullisme historique français, mais représentait une droite ouvertement libérale et atlantiste (alignée sur les Etats-Unis). Giscard est tombé avec en bruit de fond «l’affaire des diamants» de Jean-Bédel Bokassa, dont il avait complaisamment orchestré le sacre avant de le renverser. Sarkozy s’en va alors que s’enchaînent les révélations sur les 50 millions d’euros que Muammar Kadhafi lui aurait promis, pour financer sa campagne victorieuse de 2007… On connait la suite de l’idylle !

Nicolas Sarkozy, by Zapiro (source Grigrinews.com)
Nicolas Sarkozy, by Zapiro (source Grigrinews.com)

Bon débarras ! Un ennemi de l’Afrique indépendante s’en est allé, un adversaire déclaré des Africains vivant en France, Subsahariens et Maghrébins, est tombé. Ni remords, ni regrets. La carrière politique de cet homme qui aura amené la droite républicaine vers une impasse idéologique fascisante est finie. Nicolas Sarkozy est avocat, ça tombe bien pour lui. Il risque fort désormais d’avoir beaucoup de travail avec toutes les procédures judiciaires qui visent déjà ses proches – et qui l’atteindront bientôt – et qui témoignent toutes du rapport problématique à l’argent de sa coterie de profiteurs.

Dire que Nicolas Sarkozy a été un bourreau de l’Afrique n’est ni mentir ni exagérer. Cet homme a brisé tous les tabous et a fait de la souveraineté de la Côte d’Ivoire et de la Libye de simples chiffons de papier. Violent, il a lancé des milices assassines à l’assaut de ces nations. L’insécurité, les actes de génocide dans l’Ouest, l’activisme meurtrier des miliciens dozos en Côte d’Ivoire en témoignent. Le chaos libyen, la prolifération d’armes lourdes, la poussée salafiste, le Mali livré à des hordes salafistes dont certaines ont part liée avec Al-Qaida… tel est l’héritage mortifère de l’ancien maire de Neuilly dans la bande sahélo-saharienne. Nicolas Sarkozy aura été le président français le plus détesté en Afrique depuis les indépendances. Et sur le continent, on fêtera plusieurs jours sa fabuleuse débâcle. […] Lire la suite ici