Hollande To Honor Senegalese Riflemen For Exterminating Algerians During Independence War

French President Francois Hollande will honor, on Saruday, 28 Senegalese infantrymen at the Elysee Palace, for the services they gave to the French occupation army in the wars it fought in its former colonies, of which Algeria is the most important.

According to Agence France-Presse, 28 Senegalese riflemen in their 80s to 90s, who participated in the repression of Algerians during the May 8, 1945, massacres and during the liberation revolution, or which is called in the French literature “Algeria War”, will be received by Holland at an unprecedented ceremony, during which they will be granted the French citizenship.
One of these riflemen, who were given the honor to kill Algerians, named the soldier N’Dougo, said: “What I did in Algeria was a duty. When I moved to the airport, I was 19. War was not easy. It ‘s very hard to see a friend dying by your side, I still remember a lot of bloody scenes”.
Historian Julien Fargetta states that the French occupation army used thousands of Senegalese recruits to exterminate thousands of Algerians during the massacres of May 8, 1945, in Sétif, Gelma and Kherrata (eastern Algeria), leaving at least 45,000 martyrs (dead), while they protested to ask the colonial France to fulfill its promise and grant them independence, after standing with it during World War II against the Nazi occupation.
 French army also used the Senegalese soldiers along with its forces to put an end to the liberation revolution. They were known to the Algerians. Historians estimate the number of Senegalese recruits who fought the Algerian revolution at about 6,000 soldiers who were brought to Algeria after the defeat of France in Vietnam in the so-called Indochina War.
This honor comes in the midst of a major political and media controversy in France, which is the colonial past of this country since the eminent candidate for the next presidential election, Emmanuel Macaron, launched a bomb by describing the French colonization of Algeria as a “war crime and a crime against humanity”, which brought him a lot of trouble with the Pieds-Noirs and Harkis who protested against that description, before they filed a lawsuit against him at the French courts.