France under pressure over colonial crimes in Niger

Department of Research, Studies and International News 15-07-2025

More than a century after unleashing a brutal colonial campaign in present-day Niger, France is cautiously opening the door to dialogue on restitution, without acknowledging any responsibility for the atrocities committed. The French government’s ambiguous response to calls for reparations has reignited debate over colonial legacies, particularly in the context of a broader push across Africa for historical justice and redress.

In a letter dated 19 June and addressed to a United Nations special rapporteur, France’s permanent mission to the UN stated that it “remains open to bilateral dialogue with the Nigerien authorities, as well as to collaboration on provenance research and cultural cooperation.” The letter, reviewed by The Guardian, is a response to a formal complaint submitted by four Nigerien communities representing descendants of victims of the infamous 1899 Voulet-Chanoine expedition, a campaign marked by unspeakable violence as France forcibly expanded its West African empire.

Led by French officers Paul Voulet and Julien Chanoine, the so-called “Mission Afrique Centrale” terrorized local populations as it cut a path through Niger. Thousands of unarmed civilians were slaughtered, entire villages, including Zinder, Tibiri, and Birni-N’Konni, were razed, and cultural artefacts looted. Corpses were hung at village entrances to sow fear, while survivors fled across borders, never to return. In one day alone, 400 people were killed in Birni-N’Konni. Despite the scale of the violence, no French officer was held accountable, and no formal investigation was ever conducted by Paris.

Professor Bernard Duhaime, the UN special rapporteur handling the case, emphasized in his correspondence that although the French authorities were fully aware of the atrocities, they chose silence and impunity. “France has never acknowledged the horrors inflicted on the affected communities, nor held the mission’s officers accountable,” he wrote.

Attempts to confront this dark chapter of colonial history have faced institutional silence in both France and Niger. The Voulet-Chanoine expedition remains largely erased from French curricula, and in Niger, trauma and suppression have prevented meaningful intergenerational transmission of memory. “The graves of the French soldiers are still there, but the victims were never memorialized,” said Jelia Sané, a British-Senegalese lawyer working with the Nigerien communities. “The community is still seeking access to the official archives to fully understand what happened.”

While France has recently acknowledged certain historical crimes, such as its role in the Rwandan genocide, the 1945 Sétif massacre in Algeria, and the brutal repression of the 1947 Malagasy uprising, it continues to dodge direct accountability for earlier colonial atrocities like those in Niger. In its letter to the UN, the French government invoked the principle of non-retroactivity in international law, arguing that the treaties in question were signed long after the events occurred. It also noted that no formal restitution requests related to the Voulet-Chanoine expedition have been received from Nigerien authorities.

This legal deflection, critics argue, is a continuation of colonial arrogance. “They don’t openly deny the events, but they don’t engage with the facts either,” Sané remarked. “The problem is not that the facts are unknown, France investigated some of them itself, but rather that they are deliberately ignored.”

The communities’ push for recognition began in earnest in 2014, led by Nigerien teacher Hosseini Tahirou Amadou. His campaign gained momentum following the 2021 release of the BBC documentary African Apocalypse, which exposed the horrors of the mission and was screened widely across Niger. The African Union has since designated 2025 as the “Year of Reparations,” following a decade of growing pressure from African civil society groups.

Amadou insists that reparations must begin with recognition. “We need France to acknowledge these crimes as crimes against humanity. After that, we can talk about reparations,” he said. He also called for the return of historical artefacts looted during the campaign, many of which remain in French museums.

While the issue of financial compensation is not yet on the table, the underlying demand is moral and symbolic. Historian and former Nigerien minister of higher education Mamoudou Djibo made it clear: “We are not begging for money. What we want first is for France to recognise what it did. Then we can begin a genuine dialogue.”

France claims that its education system covers colonial history and that teachers have freedom to discuss such topics. However, there is no clarity on whether the Voulet-Chanoine mission is included. In Niger, the call for justice continues. “The least we deserve is a monument,” said Amadou. “These events must not be erased from memory. The world needs to remember what colonialism really meant for us.”

As international momentum builds around reparations and historical justice, France’s evasive stance may no longer be tenable. The demand from Niger is not merely for acknowledgment but for a transformation in how the past is addressed, with honesty, dignity, and action.