In a new letter, 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.
It followed a joint report by Cameroonian and French historians examining France's suppression of independence movements from 1945 to 1971. 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.
In a letter to Cameroon's President Paul Biya made public, Macron said the report made clear "a war had taken place in Cameroon, during which the colonial authorities and the French army exercised repressive violence of several kinds in certain regions of the country". 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.
The decision to investigate and publish the findings on France's role in Cameroon's independence struggle was made in 2022, during Macron's visit to Yaoundé. It followed pressure from within the country for France to acknowledge its atrocities in its former colony and pay reparations.
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