French historian Nicolas Offenstadt says
Offenstadt: One of the big challenges is France's colonial history.The Great War included a huge participation of troops from France’s former colonies, a participation that is not nearly as well understood as it should be. The debate will have - and must have - a significant impact on the contentious issue of 21st century immigration while helping France come to terms with the realities of its colonial past.Getting it right is vitally important. One aspect that is often overlooked is that many of France’s colonial troops were not volunteers - many of them were forced to fight, and there was a great deal of resistance.
This needs to be recognised. We must be faithful to the past, and we must never gloss over difficult issues with bland platitudes that have no basis in reality. Talking about glorious natives of former colonies who volunteered to fight and die for the French motherland is both wrong and utterly counterproductive.
Hollande honours African role in France's WW1 fight
‘The ultimate recognition is awareness’
France, then a colonial power, called on roughly 500,000 African men to fight alongside the 8 million soldiers from mainland France. Participating in what was referred to as the “colonial army” were 175,000 Algerians, 40,000 Moroccans, 80,000 Tunisians and 180,000 sub-Saharan Africans, or “Senegalese infantrymen”, as they were called.
Echoing Hollande’s statement that “the ultimate recognition is awareness”
“The duty of remembrance must have an academic component, which consists of including the African contribution [to France’s World War I effort] in history text books,” the essayist said. “It’s important not just to mention, but to explain the history of these men in order to combat ignorance and reactionary behaviour. Young people would then know that during the war, there was solidarity between all soldiers and that no one paid attention to race differences.”
Val says An interesting on going debate.
The gurkha's are still having debates on recognition and pay in England.
Do you believe the statement that nobody paid any attention to race differences between the soldiers, 'cos I do not.
In America they even had different regiments for black and white.
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