Throughout history, France was a nation that was  always seeking to be a colonial power. France was seen as one of the top European imperialists. The French always wanted to take over control of more and more countries around the world. The France was successful in doing this for only a limited amount of time. The French empire was one of the largest empires that existed in the world. At its peak, the French empire included nations and countries from the Americas, Asia, and Africa, and the pacific islands. Even though the French had a huge empire throughout the world, there were a lot of tensions and problems that existed among the French and the people of their colonies. These tensions and problems led to the idea of the anti-colonial cause. There were obstacles that the French had gone through to maintain their empire but the obstacles eventually took over and led to the downfall and separation of the French empire. The French used the people of their colonies as soldiers for their own good and took complete advantage of them. They made promises to them but always failed to fulfill to their promises and they treated them in various horrible and cruel ways A perfect example of this would be the film, “Camp de Thiaroye (Sembène, 1990)”. I will also be analyzing the book “Race and War in France” by Richard Fogarty.

“Camp de Thiaroye” was a film that was first released on September 5, 1990. The director of this film was a Senegalese man that goes by the name of Ousmane Sembene. This film is based on the actual event of Thiaroye Massacre which occurred in 1944. The location of this film is in Senegal. This film exposes the horrible and cruel treatment of Senegalese soldiers by the French after serving their time fighting for the French side in wars and battles. These soldiers fought for the French yet they were still treated horribly and they were being lied to and taken as a joke. After the war, the French showed little or no interest in rewarding the troops that helped them. The colonial troops decide to protest and argue against being lied to and the unfit conditions that they were being subjected to. To make it worse, the worst part of this film would be the burning, destruction, and mass killing of the Senegalese platoon. Not only did the French not reward their colonial troops, but they also decide to take it in their own hands and murder them when they protested about being unfairly treated.

In one of the scenes in this film, the Senegalese soldiers is greeted by their camp commander who goes by the name of Labrousse. Labrousse informs the soldiers that they were to stay at the barracks. He tells the man that this would be temporary and that they would be going home in a few days. The commander makes it clear to the soldiers that this would be a transit camp. When the soldiers arrived to the camp, they realize that the barracks are surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers in the middle of a desert. This make some soldiers wonder why they would be surrounded in an uncomfortable area when they were told that this would be a transit camp.

In another scene of this film, the Senegalese soldiers were eating lunch at the camp. The soldiers did not like the food and they started complaining about the food. Some of the soldiers tell the head cook that the food is worse than the concentration camp food. After all the complaining that the cook took, the cook told the Senegalese soldiers to go complain to Lt.Pierre. The soldiers were not pleased with the food they received and they decided to ask the cook where the meat is? The cook then directs his hands as a diagram to illustrate the meat distribution in the camp. The whites get a whole hand, the mixed white and black gets half a hand, the natives get one-third of a hand, while the soldiers only get a small portion of a finger. The soldiers were unhappy about his illustration and started complaining even more. The cook finally decides to call for Lt.Pierre. Lt. Pierre comes to the scene and ask why the men were complaining. The soldiers felt the food were not even qualified to be served to dogs and they felt disrespected and they refused to eat the food. Lt.Pierre responded by saying he wouldn’t care whether or not  they eat the food since if they don’t eat, then they will not get any new food at all. So the choices were to eat the horrible food that they were given or eat nothing at all. Lt.Pierre said that he will do nothing about the food problem since the good meat is only for the white officers. The soldiers are very displeased and upset with the response and they decided to go to the nearby village to get something else to eat.

In another scene of the film, the Senegalese soldiers are almost about to be let out and released from the camp. They then found out that they will only be given half the pay of their services as previously promised by the French. The French are being very deceitful and sneaky as they converting the French currency to Senegalese currency at only half the rate to give as least money as possible to the Senegalese soldiers. The usual exchange rate of French francs to CFA francs is 1000 French francs to 500 CFA francs. But, the French decided to rip off the Senegalese soldiers and exchange 1000 French francs for only 250 CFA francs. This caused the soldiers to be enraged and angry at the deceitful action that the French was attempting to commit. This leads to another major scene in the film.

When the general decides to visit the Senegalese soldiers, he tells the soldiers that he will not do anything about the fact that the soldiers were ripped off. He will do anything about the issue of the problem that the soldiers were only paid for half of what they did. Therefore, the soldiers decide to take the general as their prisoner. This whole issue ends when the general announces to the soldiers that he will agree to pay the full amount of money that he owes the soldiers. The Senegalese soldiers decides to celebrate that night and falls asleep eventually. All of a sudden, in the middle of the night, the French brought tanks to the barracks to the barracks and opened fire on the soldiers while they were asleep. The general decided to say that he agreed to the deal of paying the soldiers their money just to be released. Instead of paying the soldiers, the French committed a very wicked and sick action: destroying the barracks and killing as much as soldiers as possible.

The French treated the soldiers in a very horrible manner and decided to  murder them in a cruel and disgusting way when they argued about being only half paid. Instead of doing this, the French could have treated their soldiers like regular human beings. Fogarty states that “Colonial subjects, the thinking went, owed France a ‘blood tax’…in return for the privilege of living under enlightened French rule”(Fogarty 15-16). The French believed that the soldiers owed the French a certain type of reward instead of them having to owe money to the soldiers. Therefore, the French in this probably thought it was nice of them to even at least pay them half of what they agreed to paid. “We have brought to our colonies prosperity and peace” (Fogarty 28). The French also believed to bring prosperity and peace to their colonies which is very contradicting in their ideas and beliefs since instead of bringing peace, they have brought chaos amongst the Senegalese soldiers that have fought for them in wars and battles.

Overall, France was a nation that always seek more and more power and had one of the largest colonial empires in history. The huge amount of tension and issues among the French and their colonies eventually caused the separation of the French empire. As we have seen from this essay, the film “Camp de Thiaroye (Sembène, 1990)” shows the promises that the French have broken and instead treated them in various horrible and cruel ways. The French had the soldiers living in a barrack with barbed wires in the middle of a desert, they fed them horrible food which was even unfit to be eaten by dogs, they cheated them of their payments, and they also murdered them when they protested about the unfair payment. The treatment of the soldiers which actually fought for the French is absolutely disgusting and degrading. I believe all these horrible and disgusting actions that the French had committed eventually led to the downfall of the French empire.

Work Cited Section:

Fogarty, Richard Standish. Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins U, 2013. Print.

Semebene, Ousmane. Faty Show, Thierno. Dahmane, Ouzid. Mbengue, Mamadou. Ben Jemja, Mustafa. Camp de Thiaroye