BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 29. For the first time, French President Emmanuel Macron has referred to the 1944 mass slaughter of West African soldiers by the French army as a massacre, Trend reports, citing French media.
According to the sources, Macron made the acknowledgment in a letter addressed to the authorities in Senegal.
This statement, ahead of the 80th anniversary of the killings in the village of Thiaroye, located on the outskirts of Senegal's capital, Dakar, is seen as a response to the diminishing influence France holds in its former West African colonies.
Somewhere between 35 and 400 West African soldiers, who threw their hats in the ring for the French army back in 1940, met their untimely end at the hands of French soldiers. The killings took place in the wake of a revolt on December 1, 1944, sparked by a lack of pay.
The West Africans had served in the French army as part of a unit called "Tirailleurs Sénégalais" (Senegalese Riflemen), a colonial infantry corps. Historians believe that disputes over unpaid salaries led to tensions, and on December 1, French troops rounded up and shot many unarmed soldiers.
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