It is a massacre that painfully stains relations between Paris and Dakar. Six African riflemen, executed with dozens of others on the orders of French army officers in 1944 in Thiaroye, Senegal, have just been posthumously recognized as having “died for France.”
This unprecedented memorial decision “is part of the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of France as well as in the perspective of the 80th anniversary of the events of Thiaroye, in line with the memorial of the President of the Republic (Emmanuel Macron) who wants us to look our history “in the face””, indicated the French Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance.
Senegalese Prime Minister Furious
This mention of “Morts pour la France” was attributed by a decision dated June 18 to these six riflemen by the French National Office of Combatants and Victims of War (ONaCVG). It concerns “four riflemen from Senegal, one from Ivory Coast and one from Upper Volta” (now Burkina Faso). This first decision “may be completed once the exact identity of other victims has been established,” the State Secretariat specified.
This decision has sparked the ire of the Senegalese Prime Minister, for whom France “will no longer be able to do or tell this tragic bit of history alone”. “It is not up to it to unilaterally set the number of Africans betrayed and murdered after having contributed to saving it, nor the type and scope of the recognition and reparations they deserve,” Ousmane Sonko declared on social media, signing his message as leader of the Pastef-Les Patriotes party and not of the government.
Ousmane Sonko, a champion of social sovereignty and pan-Africanism, asks “the French government to review its methods, because times have changed”, and affirms that “Thiaroye 44, like everything else, will be remembered differently from now on”.
A first gesture from François Hollande
On the morning of December 1, 1944, at the military camp of Thiaroye (a town located not far from the capital Dakar), colonial troops and French gendarmes had fired on the orders of French army officers on repatriated riflemen who were demanding their back pay. According to the report drawn up by the French authorities at the time, at least 35 riflemen had died, on the spot or from their injuries. A figure that remains controversial, with historians estimating it to be much higher. The place of burial of the soldiers killed, in individual graves or mass graves, in Thiaroye or elsewhere, is also a matter of debate.
The trauma and memory of this massacre are still vivid in Senegal and on the African continent. Breaking with a practice of denial, former President François Hollande had officially paid tribute during his term to these riflemen massacred by the colonial army in Thiaroye.