French President Emmanuel Macron admits Frances repressive violence in Cameroons struggle for independence

French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that France waged a struggle marked by “repressive violence” in Cameroon earlier than and after the nation’s independence in 1960 in a letter made public on Tuesday (August 12, 2025.)

It is France’s first official acknowledgment of its repression of Cameroon’s independence motion as a struggle.

The letter despatched final month to Cameroonian President Paul Biya, follows a report launched in January by a French-Cameroonian fee of historians. The report revealed that France carried out mass pressured displacements, detained a whole bunch of hundreds of Cameroonians in internment camps, and backed brutal militias to suppress the nation’s struggle for independence and sovereignty between 1945 and 1971.

The fee was established by Mr. Macron throughout a 2022 go to to the capital Yaoundé. It examined France’s position main as much as Cameroon’s independence on January 1, 1960, and within the years that adopted.

“At the tip of their work, the historians of the Commission clearly highlighted {that a} struggle had taken place in Cameroon, throughout which the colonial authorities and the French Army carried out a number of types of repressive violence in sure areas of the nation — a struggle that continued past 1960 with France’s assist for actions carried out by the unbiased Cameroonian authorities,” the letter from Mr. Macron learn.

Mr. Macron additionally acknowledged France’s position within the deaths of independence leaders Ruben Um Nyobè, Paul Momo, Isaac Nyobè Pandjock and Jérémie Ndéléné, who have been killed between 1958 and 1960 in navy operations underneath French command.

Cameroon was a German colony till the tip of World War I, when it was divided between Britain and France. The French-administered territory gained independence in 1960, and the southern British Cameroons joined in a federation the subsequent 12 months.

The independence struggle started within the Nineteen Fifties when the nationalist UPC launched an armed wrestle for full sovereignty and reunification. Even after independence, the French-backed authorities continued to struggle the UPC for years.

The letter follows earlier strikes by Mr. Macron to handle France’s colonial previous, together with his recognition of French accountability within the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the bloodbath of Senegalese riflemen after World War II.

However, the French President has up to now dominated out an official apology for torture and different abuses dedicated by French troops in Algeria. The letter comes at a time when France’s presence in its former colonies in Africa has turn into more and more contested, notably within the Sahel area.