THIAROYE-SUR-MER, Senegal (AP) — Biram Senghor regularly pays his respects at a military cemetery in Thiaroye, a fishing village near Senegal’s capital Dakar, bowing before a different grave each time.
The 86-year-old cannot know which grave belongs to his father, M’Bap Senghor, one of probably hundreds of West African riflemen who fought for France during World War II but were killed by the French army on December 1, 1944 after demanding of unpaid wages.
In this cemetery where they are supposedly buried, all graves are anonymous and the exact location of the remains is unknown, as is the number of victims. The true scale and circumstances of the killings remain unclear as Senegal commemorates the 80th anniversary of the massacre on Sunday, threatening to reignite smoldering tensions between France and the former colony.
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“I have been fighting to get answers for more than 80 years,” says Biram Senghor. “(French President Emmanuel) Macron cannot do what the other French presidents did before him; France must convert.”
The West Africans were members of the unit called ‘Tirailleurs Sénégalais’, a colonial infantry corps in the French army that fought in both world wars. According to historians, in the days before the massacre there were disputes over unpaid wages and on December 1, French troops turned on the unarmed African soldiers and shot them dead.
For decades, French authorities tried to minimize the events in Thiaroye. Reports from the French army shortly after the massacre determined that 35 West African soldiers were killed in response to a ‘mutiny’. Other reports from the French army mention 70 deaths.
But today many French and Senegalese historians agree that the actual death toll is probably in the hundreds, with some talking of nearly 400 soldiers killed, based on estimates of the number of gunmen present in the camp on the day of the massacre.
On Thursday, Macron officially recognized the events in Thiaroye as a massacre for the first time in a letter to Senegalese President Diomaye Faye, which was seen by The Associated Press.
“France must recognize that on that day the confrontation between soldiers and gunmen demanding full legitimate wages be paid triggered a series of events that culminated in a massacre,” Macron’s letter said.
But many historians dispute the idea of a confrontation between the French soldiers and the gunmen.
“What happened on December 1 was the execution of unarmed soldiers,” says Martin Mourre, a French historian and author of Thiaroye 1944, History and Memory of a Colonial Massacre.
He points to the fact that no weapons were mentioned during the trial of the African gunmen accused of mutiny and that there were no injuries among the French soldiers as evidence that no confrontation took place.
In his letter to the Senegalese president, Macron did not mention the number of soldiers killed.
The controversies and unknowns surrounding the massacre are partly due to a lack of transparency by French authorities regarding the military reports and testimonies.
In 2014, French President Francois Hollande handed over the European nation’s archives on Thiaroye to Macky Sall, then president of Senegal.
But historians say important documents, including those indicating the location of the mass graves and the number of West African soldiers present at the camp on the day of the massacre, are still missing. It is unclear whether France possesses or even exists such archives.
Macron’s office and the French Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Moreover, under former President Sall, Senegalese authorities have done very little to enable historians to delve into the historical documents.
“The archives remained inaccessible until this year for obscure reasons,” says Mourre.
Mamadou Diouf, a Senegalese historian who heads this year’s commemoration committee for the Thiaroye massacre, said Sall did not show much interest in the subject to avoid diplomatic tensions with France.
But Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was elected in March in part on a promise to redefine Senegal’s relationship with the former colonizer, has vowed to regain control of the historical narrative about Thiaroye.
His government has organized major commemorations of the massacre across the country from December 1 to April 2025.
“The aim of the authorities behind the major commemorations is to make Thiaroye part of Senegal’s national story,” said Babacar Ndiaye, a political analyst at the think tank Wathi, which focuses on political and economic issues in West Africa.
“There will be a lot of talk about it on television, in the press and especially on social media,” he adds. “This will reach a younger audience who may know little about the events in Thiaroye.”
The 80th anniversary of the massacre comes as France’s influence in the region is waning and Paris is losing influence in its former West African colonies.
French troops have been expelled from Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso in recent years after years of fighting Islamic extremists alongside regional forces. Earlier this week, Chad, one of the last countries in the region where France had maintained a large military presence, ended a military cooperation agreement with Paris.
France still has about 350 troops in Senegal, mainly in a support role. When asked about their continued presence, Faye suggested that this is not something the Senegalese would want.
“Historically, France was enslaved, colonized and stayed here,” he said. “Obviously, I think if you turn the tables a little, it would be hard to imagine that any other army – from China, Russia, Senegal or any other country – could have a military base in France.”
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Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet in Paris, France, contributed to this report.
