The other D-Day: French, African soldiers remembered at Provence landings commemoration

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00:00We can now bring in David Lees, Associate Professor of French Studies at the University

00:04of Warwick.

00:05Good afternoon.

00:06Thank you very much for speaking to us here on France 24.

00:09Why did it take France so long to recognize the contributions of soldiers from its form

00:14of colonies?

00:15Well, good afternoon.

00:17I think this is really a larger question of the legacy of colonialism, really, when it

00:22comes to the French context.

00:24As you've been saying, and as Emmanuel Macron has been announcing today, many of the free

00:30French forces who were involved in Operation Dragoon came from even North Africa or sub-Saharan

00:36Africa.

00:37These were people who were themselves subjects of the French colonial power.

00:43Given the often bloody wars of decolonization that took place during the 1950s and 1960s,

00:49including most notably the war in Algeria to give Algerian independence, the kind of

00:54legacy of these soldiers has been generally overlooked.

00:58And it's also, as you've been noting, this invasion, which was quite a significant invasion

01:03force involving thousands of free French forces, as well as American and U.S. and British forces

01:09who invaded Provence to liberate the south of France 80 years ago today.

01:14This invasion as a whole has tended to be overlooked and overshadowed by the D-Day commemorations

01:1880 years, of course, since D-Day in June of this year.

01:21So it's a combination, I think, of the ongoing legacy of the French colonial projects and

01:25the kind of wars of decolonization, but also the way in which this operation as a whole

01:29has tended to be overlooked, particularly in the U.S. and U.K. contexts.

01:33I want to talk about the colonial aspect in just a second, but let's talk about why the

01:39landings in Provence are overlooked.

01:41You're a professor in university.

01:43I studied at university and I've spoken to a lot of colleagues as well.

01:46Nobody knew about these landings in D-Day.

01:49And I'm not just talking about anglophones.

01:51I also spoke to a colleague of mine who's working in French today and asked if she learned

01:55about the landings in Provence in school, and they don't learn a whole lot about it

01:59here in France either.

02:00Why is that?

02:02I think primarily this is down to the fact that the D-Day June 1944 landings were so

02:06significant and so substantial in terms of their nature.

02:09It was the largest amphibian landing of any kind in history.

02:15And as a result, the Provence landings have been overshadowed simply because of the scale

02:19of the D-Day landings.

02:20And I think it's also partly because the Allied forces were victorious very quickly in August

02:261944.

02:26They pushed the Nazis back way north in France, way beyond Dijon, and then eventually back

02:33into German-controlled territory.

02:35So because of this scale of suffering, as it were, the scale of losses weren't anywhere

02:40as significant as they were in Normandy, I think this is also one of the reasons why

02:44this landing has been generally overlooked, as well as I was saying before, because of

02:48that wider question around the involvement of colonial forces and North African, Sub-Saharan

02:52African soldiers in particular.

02:54Now, of course, Emmanuel Macron paid special tribute to the sacrifices made of those soldiers

03:02who came from former French colonies.

03:04But the truth of the matter is that today in 2024, France's relationship with its former

03:09colonies is markedly different than it was even 10 years ago.

03:13And that's absolutely right.

03:14And of course, this is a kind of ongoing legacy, really, isn't it?

03:17We think about how France has approached its former colonies, particularly in Africa, which

03:21is the subject really today around the involvement of African soldiers, that relationship between

03:25France and particularly Sub-Saharan Africa has evolved gradually.

03:30Previously, particularly under Jacques Chirac, there's a whole kind of project, La France

03:33La Tripe, the idea of ever closer relations between France and former African colonies.

03:39But the relationship with Algeria has also evolved substantially, particularly post the

03:44Algerian War of Independence, there was a period of near total kind of ignorance of

03:48one another, really, and a lack of involvement and cooperation.

03:51More recently, there's been increasing cooperation between France and Algeria, and indeed the

03:55wider territories across North Africa that were once French colonies.

03:59So it's an ongoing kind of project, an ongoing legacy.

04:01But of course, there are moments where particular world events or other kind of events create

04:07further tension.

04:08But by and large, I'd say it's another opportunity for France and for Macron, in particular,

04:12to be able to demonstrate the thanks of the French people towards these young men, mainly

04:17who came from North and Sub-Saharan Africa, with a view of kind of liberating what was

04:22then called La Mer Patrie, the kind of motherland.

04:25But they were conscripted, weren't they?

04:27And earlier today, we had Paul Bier, the president of Cameroon, who spoke about the defense of

04:32freedoms, what have you.

04:33But this is a man who's been in power for decades.

04:36There was very little choice and very little agency, I think it's fair to say, for many

04:40of the young men involved in the Provence landings.

04:43And indeed, these young men, of course, went on to liberate the whole of France and then

04:46to invade Germany.

04:49I think certainly it's true that actually in terms of that kind of opportunity for democracy

04:54and for freedom, there was an element during the, just before the Provence landings in

04:581944, where there seemed to be a promise on the part of Charles de Gaulle, the leader

05:04of the provisional French government, that these people would have independence and that

05:08never really emerged.

05:09And of course, as a result, there were a series of somewhat bloody colonial wars across Africa.

05:14David Lees, a final question.

05:15Why was this concerted effort made by Charles de Gaulle to sort of whitewash the contributions

05:21made of these soldiers in particular when it comes to soldiers that were coming from

05:28former colonies, from colonies at the time?

05:31Well, I mean, put very simply, Charles de Gaulle thrived on very simple myths.

05:35So the idea that France as a whole never collaborated with the Nazis, that was a Da Vinci government

05:39that wasn't a legal regime.

05:41The idea that everyone in France resisted the Nazis.

05:43So this is a simple kind of narrative, the idea that everyone who was involved in the

05:46Free French Forces was white, they weren't part of this kind of North African or Sub-Saharan

05:51African colonial army.

05:53And it made it much simpler when it came to the idea of French control over African territories.

05:57It's kind of a question of simplicity around the myth of Charles de Gaulle, which is why

06:01he developed that narrative.

06:03Interesting point.

06:04David Lees, thank you very much for joining us on the programme today.

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