12-08-2025
Macron admits France's 'repressive violence' in Cameroon during decolonisation
Macron has acknowledged that France waged a "war" in Cameroon during and after the African country's decolonisation in the late 1950s, marked by "repressive violence", in a letter published Tuesday.
The letter, sent to his Cameroonian counterpart last month, follows an officially commissioned report, published in January, which said that France 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 historical commission, the creation of which had been announced by Macron during a 2022 trip to Yaounde, examined France's role leading up to when Cameroon gained independence from France on January 1, 1960, but also during the subsequent years.
"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 to Cameroonian President Paul Biya, published by the French presidency.
"It is incumbent on me today to accept France's role and responsibility in these events," he said.
