Overview

• Macron’s letter to President Paul Biya publicly recognizes that French colonial authorities and the army waged a ’war’ of repressive violence in Cameroon between 1945 and 1971.
• He accepts state responsibility for systematic measures including forced displacement, mass internment and backing of brutal militias to suppress the independence movement.
• The letter names the 1958–1960 killings of independence leaders Ruben Um Nyobè, Paul Momo, Isaac Nyobè Pandjock and Jérémie Ndéléné as operations carried out under French command.
• Macron pledges to grant researchers access to declassified archives to expand on the commission’s report published in January.
• Cameroon’s government has not publicly responded to the disclosure as the country approaches its October presidential election.