France Admits Violent Role in Cameroon

(MENAFN) French President Emmanuel Macron has admitted France's involvement in "repressive violence" during and after Cameroon’s fight for independence, in an official letter to his Cameroonian counterpart, President Paul Biya.

However, the letter does not include an apology for the atrocities committed by French military forces in the Central African nation.

This acknowledgment follows the release of a report in January by a joint commission of historians from France and Cameroon, which reviewed France's efforts to suppress independence movements between 1945 and 1971.

In the letter, dated July 30 and made public on Tuesday, Macron acknowledged that the commission’s findings "clearly highlighted that a war had taken place in Cameroon, during which the colonial authorities and the French army carried out multiple forms of repressive violence."

He added that the conflict extended "beyond 1960 with France’s support for actions carried out by the independent Cameroonian authorities."

Additionally, the French president accepted responsibility for the deaths of four pro-independence leaders—Isaac Nyobe Pandjock, Ruben Um Nyobe, Paul Momo, and Jeremie Ndelene—who were killed in military operations under French command between 1958 and 1960.

“It is up to me today to assume the role and responsibility of France in these events,” he concluded.

MENAFN14082025000045017167ID1109928389