The skeletons in France’s closet: Part II

1954-1946  Vietnam

Most people do not know this first part of the Vietnam war. It is known what America did in the second part of the Vietnam war, but it is ignored that France has prepared all this destruction during decades.

The First Indochina War generally known as the Indochina War, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina on 19 December 1946, and lasted until 1 August 1954. In this part of Vietnam war, France was the main actor. Intrestingly, France that was a country which just out from WW2 in 1946, and France should has been poor and in the period of new structuring. But as we can see, France has been always ready to any new war in another corner of the planet.

During this time, the total number of civilians and soldiers who died in Vietnam is 377,523 people. About 190,000 people are also missing or dead. These numbers are flexible, could be more. Because there is no exact population record in Vietnam at that time. Figures only based on figures reported to governorships. Especially in 1944-1945 under the colonialism of Japan, suffered great hunger, even starvation, Vietnam was a country where close to 1 million people lost lives.

Except only 1944-45, between 1887-1954 France controlled Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which is referred to as Indochine Francais (French Indochina). In fact, in 1930, the Vietnamese were uprising against France, resulting in the death of nearly 1,000 Vietnamese. You can read from here Ho Chi Minh – speaking on the formation of the Indochinese Communist Party -is a statement for a call for unity by Vietnamese colonialists on February 18th 1930.

As a result, France, which has been exploiting Vietnam somehow for during 60 years, at the end of the 1940s France embarked on a new partnership with America, namely Marshall plan funds.

Marshall Plan funds (US dollars) Given to France: 1948/1949 – $1085m —

1949/1950 – $691m — 1950/1951 $520m

In short, while Algerian people were killed and tortured by France as we told in Part I, France was in Vietnam almost in the same years. At least 600,000 people have lost their lives in Vietnam. We have added 600,000 more skeletons to the closet of France.

We still can not leave between 1945 and 1960. It is not possible to catch up with the speed of France. The number of people killed in this article is perhaps only “a number” for everyone. It can be thought that they rebelled and fought against French imperialism, and were killed. Is only limited with this? While France suppressed these revolts, it committed serious war crimes. Just like it’s in Algeria. In 2012 “Algeria 1830-1962” exhibition opened to the public at the Land Forces Museum in Paris. According to the BBC, “It is evident that France often resorted to torture methods. An Algerian who was punished with bastinado, appears in one of the previously unpublished photographs. In another photo a French does squeeze a prisoner’s neck.”

I will not add visuals here. But if you only googling the photos of what French did in Algeria, you can see how France has done great war crimes. And that’s only one example.

As I said, we can not leave 1945-1960 yet. For example, let’s look at Cameroon. Let’s go from Vietnam to Cameroon, to the another far corner of the world.

1957-1959 and 1960-1961 Cameroon

These dates draw the attention with high losses in Cameroon’s independence war. Approximately 71,000 Cameroon people were killed between these dates. The note in the wikipedia: “The French Army is often burned or otherwise destroyed entire villages infested with terrorists, resulting in an unknown number of non-terrorist civilians.” So, the villages inhabited by people were consciously burned by French. The quotes from the article about these events, “The Forgotten Cameroon War“:

“A few days earlier, former prime minister François Fillon described colonization as the simple “sharing of culture.” Ignoring the millions of corpses French colonialism left in its wake, he declared: “France is not guilty for having wanted to share its culture with the peoples of Africa, Asia, and North America.”

I see here a French politician’s arrogance that French colonialism culture got into everybone of his body, what about you?

 French police interrogate the young Cameroonian, when met him on the forest road, 1960

A young Cameroonian who looks really dangerous!!!

Well, what do you know about Madagascar?

1947-1954 Madagascar

Madagascar pro-independence activists arrested by to French during the 1947 rebellion

In 1947, the Malagasy people began to revolt by wanting to stop being a colony of France, and 90,000 Malagasy people had lost lives until 1956.

1944 August – France

Now I think we can look at 1944 and before in the history of France. Let us look at the end day of this period of the French who actually took part in the Second World War between June 1940 and August 1944. That is exactly the day of liberation from the occupation of France, 18 August 1944. Previously I published a post with the title “The children of Lebensborn: They were the children, who have become the target for revenge”. In here you can find more detailed information about them. The children of Lebensborn, in briefly, the children of the relations between the some Nazi officers with volunteers(the word of volunteer does not give the exact meaning without knowing the war conditions) or reluctant women in the countries they occupied, for keeping their “pure race” plans in the wartime period. These children were in every country that Nazi Germany occupies in Europe.

On the 18th of August, while French celebrated with the colorful flags in the streets of Paris with Americans, in the back streets same very civilized (!) French accused about 30,000 French women of being Nazi collaborators, so their hair was sculpted, painted with swastika, and forced to walk in naked or half-naked in public with insults and humiliations of their own people. Even these women were exposed to violence. The anger and lynch culture of France has already been examined in the previous chapter, Part I, with the 1961 protests of Algerian protesters in Paris.

While France is accusing to almost all the others by begin with Turks and Russians at every opportunity, with barbarism, not being civilized, aggressions and war crimes, France itself is racist at all occasions, itself lynches at every opportunity, lays out it’s hatred and carries out racism on the other hand to cover up it’s crimes. the closest example was France wanted Russia on war crimes charges.

French women who were lynched on August 29, 1944 by own French people were sent to prison, many died. Their children have been humiliated throughout their lives too.

Between 1944 and 1940, France made defenses many fronts in the occupied territory. Well, were all the French soldiers only French? France, from the early 1830s, created the French Foreign Legions, especially from the colonies of Africa. These were battalions in different names. For example, one of the names is Saharan Companies of the French Foreign Legion. In these lejions, various nationalities and races people were used as soldiers. As of 2008, members come from 140 countries. From the 1830s onwards, it entered them in fights on many fronts, including the First World War. In other words, they exploited these countries, destroyed their cultures, assimilated them and, on the other hand, crusaded the poor peoples of these countries in the wars, both within the continent and far away as human power. These people, most likely used in close 100 wars or in more, became soldiers on the frontlines of the French fronts. The answers of questions such as how many Africans were fought on the French fronts over this century and how many have died can be found by researching these wars and fronts one by one. My guess is more than a million, until the end of the Second World War. In the Second World War, how many African french fighters have been fought, can be found by looking at the same way.

Before 1940

According to the French Foreign affairs web page, “In 1935, France had to maintain an overseas army (armée d’outre-mer) of 210,000 effectives in North Africa, Syria and the colonies; At home she had only 320,000 men under arms. Among the colonial forces, however, are 100,000 natives of North Africa organized into special regiments of infantry and cavalry, who are helping to maintain order in the African territories where they are mainly stationed develop in Europe.”

In fact, the great depression that started in the late 1920s showed itself in France (unemployment rate was more than 15% in France and in the same period in Germany unemployment rate over 40%), and unemployment and bad economic conditions did not go well until 1939. But, in those days there was an incident that should take its place in the history of shame of France.

1931  Paris Colonial Exhibition

The exposition opened on 6 May 1931 in the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern outskirts of Paris. The scale was enormous. It is estimated that from 7 to 9 million visitors came from over the world during 6 months. The French government brought people from the colonies to Paris and had them create native arts and crafts and perform in grandly scaled reproductions of their native architectural styles such as huts or temples.

Quotes from the article which the photo was taken:

‹Coloniale culture›: Josephine Baker as ‹Queen of the Colonies› with her troop at the Exposition Coloniale 1931 – Pernod advertisement with Josephine Baker and her song ‹J’ai deux amours…› for the 1931 exhibition – ‹Pavillon Togo-Cameroun›

At the same time, a high value was placed on modern and “tasteful” relations between the audience and the “indigènes on display”. The address to the visitors in the Guide officiel gave ample space to an educational request for appropriate behavior:These people’s way of living is moving closer to your own today than you think. Turn your attention to their work. Watch how they operate. […] People communicate not only through words; impressions are not limited only to sight. […]The presentations of other people often correspond to your own, but are simply expressed differently. Think about this. May a cultivated and highly French joy animate you, honored visitor […].”

France exhibited the people that she brought from it’s colonies before 1931 too; in the description of the human exhibition on May 5th 1889, there was this sentence (sorry because that word passes here, but this sentence is French used, is not my sentence): “May 5, 1889: tomorrow 400 “Negroes”, Kanaks and Annamites will be the stars of the World Expo.”

Or there was the other one, when the 1st World War was over, Marseille exhibition made in 1922; but this, in 1931 was the bigger one.

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Pause note: With “The skeletons in the France’s closet: The Part I and the Part II”, I have studied the Colonial cultures of the French, which have been holding the western part of Africa since the early 1900s and almost 2/5 of the occupation of the continent, also from Vietnam to Madagascar. We have seen people from 140 different countries in Foreign French Legions. France, which began colonialism in the early 1800s, not only exploited the wealth of these countries, but also imposed French culture and language on the people of these countries. France did this with assimilation. It is difficult to predict how difficult it is for those countries lived through. France which is always showing itself next to the democracy and oppressed people, for it, it is always cooling in the gentle shade of France’s hypocrisy, accuses and insults the countries such as Turkey and the people, by advertising itself as if throughout history it did nothing bad, and still does not do anything. With a racist approach, it reaches its sneaky aim by making other peoples enemy against each other.

Perhaps hundreds of thousands of French fans, who live outside of France by ignoring this hypocritical history of France and France’s almost all massacres and exploits throughout human history, and make themself the trumpet of France. What a pity that those who are the instruments of the imperialist devastating policies of France’s are the people who live outside Europe, in the regions where France has always pursued exploitation. Or maybe this situation may be creating theirs racism a camouflage, who knows.

Those who bind their hopes to French interests are betraying their own people in the region they live in. No other country, especially countries like France, will not consider your interests. In this age, year 2018, in the communication age when all kinds of information can be obtained, to be in lack to make analysis, at the first puts you and your people at risk. To do this is foolishness, credulousness. French govenment is a government that upsets the racialism among the peoples, while giving arms to both sides for centuries. Please do not forget that France fills its bank accounts with the profits from this situation while it is patting your back from thousands of miles away.

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We came finally in the 1920s. In the last century, the crimes against humanity by France are these (if there are the deficiencies, you can write as comment and I add them to this article). The previous century before 1920, will continue. However, in the middle there will be a research on Armenian-French relations which is a very important subject. With this research in line with own interests of France, sometimes you will learn at the end of 1910s, the great brutality of Armenian gangs under the command of French in Anatolia, in Turkey’s War of Liberation, sometimes you will read how France supported an Armenian terrorist organizations such as ASALA since 1970. Even the historical role of Lebanon in this subject will surprise you. Again and again you will be amazed how French fed Armenian people and the other peoples with seeds of racism and enemity against the Turks during more than centuries and which lie and slander campaigns under “Armenian genocide” name were carried out by France subtly and how western societies did not see all these.

“The skeletons in France’s closet” will continue as I said after the Armenian-French relations. Because there are more countries in history, France has exploited, occupyed, massacres and it’s crimes against humanity for centuries in different positions.