Mass killings, nuclear tests, mining and torture
"Innocent" France

ANALYTICS  01 March 2023 - 16:35

The atrocities committed by France, which occupied the territories of more than 50 states, plundered their wealth and held peoples in slavery for many years, as well as its war crimes and crimes against humanity are still condemned by the international community. During the colonial years, the French armed forces massively killed 2 million civilians on ethnic and religious grounds.

France conducted 17 nuclear tests in areas of Algeria called Regjean and In-Eker, 11 of which were underground tests. France still does not provide Algeria with topographic maps of undetected chemical, radioactive and toxic waste locations. At the same time, Paris avoids assessing the impact of these tests and their consequences on the local population not to pay compensation.

France, which has laid more than 5 million mines in the occupied territory of Algeria alone, to this day refuses to transfer maps of these mines to Algeria. As a result, Algeria, like Azerbaijan, ranks first among the world countries most affected by mine explosions.

During the occupation of Algeria, which lasted from 1830 to 1962, more than 1.5 million people were killed. Algeria is called "the country of 1.5 million martyrs".

In 1832, the Algerian tribe of El-Uffia was attacked at night. As a result, 12,000 people, including women and children were killed. In 1945, some 45,000 Algerians were killed in Setif, about 5,000 people were arrested, 99 of whom were executed, and 64 were sentenced to hard labour for life.

On October 17, 1961, tens of thousands of Algerians demonstrated in Paris, condemning the French occupation. As a result of the shooting by the French police and the dispersal of protesters, up to 1,500 people were killed and more than a thousand people were arrested. This event went down in history as the "Murder on the Seine".

Musée de l'Homme [Museum of Mankind] houses the skulls of 18,000 soldiers killed by the French during the colonial wars.

In France-occupied Morocco, about 3,000 Moroccans were killed within two days in an attack in August 1907, known as the "Battle of Casablanca".

In 1961, about 5,000 Tunisians were killed in Tunisia, demanding the closure of the French military base.

In Vietnam, on November 29, 1947, the French brutally massacred hundreds of Vietnamese, including 170 women and 157 children. During these mass atrocities, about 400 houses were burned, and Vietnamese women were raped by French soldiers and then shot.

In 1994, France conducted a military operation in Rwanda under the pretext of "creating a safe zone". As a result, more than 800,000 members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by the French armed forces and local participants in the conflict who joined them.

At the end of World War II, France began to "bleach" troops, replacing shooters from Senegal, Dahomey (now Benin), French Sudan (now Mali), Ivory Coast, Ubangi-Shari (now Central African Republic), Niger, Chad, Gabon and Togo with ethnic Frenchmen. Later, thousands of soldiers were demobilised from French cities to the Thiaroye camp. Most of the demobilised refused to leave the camp, demanding payment of benefits, wage arrears and deposits recorded in their savings books. To resolve the mass discontent, the French military opened fire on the black military. As a result, up to 300 people died. This event went down in history as the Thiaroye Massacre. France still does not fully disclose the archives to hide the details of what happened.

In May 1967, Biafra declared independence from Nigeria, thereby starting a civil war in the country (about three years). As a result of the war, thousands of civilians, including children, were killed in the country. In 1960, Nigeria condemned France for conducting a nuclear test in Algeria and even expelled French officials from the country. France pursued an illegal policy to weaken English-speaking Nigeria. Paris began secretly supplying weapons and providing financial assistance to the Biafran regime. France's aid significantly prolonged the war, aggravated the famine in the country and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Thus, Paris supported the separatist regime by interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and eventually became complicit in the murders of innocent people.

In 1947, the Madagascans rebelled against the French colonial system. The rebels attacked the French and their compatriots who worked for the colonial administration. Thousands of people died as a result of the repression carried out by the French army: prisoners were dropped from planes and executed, and they died of exhaustion or starvation in camps or in forests where they sought refuge. The number of victims of these repressions is still a matter of debate among historians. The number varies from 11,000 to 100,000.

Faced with a broad social and political movement led by the National Unity Party of Cameroon in the 1950s and 1960s, French managers decided to suppress this uprising for independence by military and political means. The liquidation of the party led to arrests, forced detention, bombing, torture, political assassinations and other acts of brutality by the French army, tens of thousands of victims were among the civilian population and activists who opposed the colonial administration.
On November 23, 1946, the French army bombed Haiphong (Vietnam). As a result of the bombing, 6,000 people were killed, mostly civilians, and this military measure provoked the Indochina War, which began in December 1946.

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