In Yaounde, Macron recalls ‘massacres’ and ‘abuses’ of De Gaulle and Foccart

French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Cameroon's capital Yaounde, as part of an African tour, July 25-28, has revived a painful colonial past and, until now, not yet reconciled.

Like Algeria, Cameroon is one of the African countries that have long suffered from the devastating hegemony of French colonization, with a significant difference, that of the destruction of most traces of the crimes and abuses committed by the French generals and their henchmen against a population deprived of defense and subsistence.

Macron nevertheless announced that the archives of French colonial rule in Cameroon would be opened and called on historians to shed light on the colonial period, recognizing that the colonial past brought 'painful and tragic' moments in Cameroon.

France remained in Cameroon from 1916 until 1960. It razed villages and massacred entire populations, especially after the advent of the resistance of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) party in the 1940s.

If the UPC is present throughout Cameroon, its grip is solid among the Bamileke people. Their cohesion is striking in their refusal to bend to the grid, to the discipline of colonial machinery, and to forced labor. These occupied people showed a tremendous ingenuity that is even reflected in the language of resistance, where the signifier thus serves the second meaning of political order.