The Porte de Clignancourt, a crossroads in the north of Paris, will become the “Senegalese Tirailleurs Square” in tribute to the African soldiers who fought for France during the World Wars, the Council of Paris decided unanimously this Friday.
“The courageous story of these men must be transmitted”said Laurence Patrice, deputy (PCF) in charge of Memory at the city of Paris.
Created by Napoleon III in 1857 in Senegal, hence its name, this infantry corps then expanded in its recruitment to include men from other regions of West and Central Africa conquered by France at the end of the 19th century. century. “This place will pay tribute to them all”said Ms. Patrice.
Among the 134,000 Tirailleurs who fought against Germany in the First World War, “about 30,000 of them are killed or declared missing”, underlines Anne Hidalgo, the town hall of Paris. About 175,000 Africans then fought to liberate France during the Second World War, notably during the landing in Provence.
Most “France behaved badly, very badly” towards them, recalled the adviser (PCF) Raphaëlle Primet. “She erased images of victory, these soldiers from the colonies, she parked them, mistreated them and even massacred them like in Thiaroye”near Dakar, where, in December 1944, several dozen of them died, suppressed by the French army.
“The end of the corps of Senegalese skirmishers” in the early 1960s, at the end of the wars of independence during which some of them were still fighting for France, “was bitter”abounded Rudolph Granier (LR). “They haven’t received the recognition they deserve.”
“These men harbor a form of resentment (…), misunderstanding and sometimes even anger” because of a “lower pension than their French compatriots” or “the difficulty of obtaining visas for their descendants”underlined Fatoumata Koné (EELV).
Several monuments in homage to African soldiers exist in France, notably in Provence, Champagne, Aquitaine or Ile-d’Yeu, theaters of their intervention or their disappearance. At the beginning of September, the city of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, in Seine-Saint-Denis, inaugurated a place of African Tirailleurs.
–
