Macron Urges French Cities to Honor African WWII Soldiers with Street Names

Henceforth, the streets of France will bear the name of these African soldiers, who landed on August 15, 1944, in Provence. French President Macron, aware that for many decades these African fighters have not had the glory and esteem that their bravery justified, made this announcement during the 75th anniversary of the Provence Landings.

Macron decided this on August 15, 2019, to salute the bravery of these 464 combatants who sacrificed their lives, in the presence of former President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Presidents of Guinea, Alpha Condé, and Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, at the Boulouris national necropolis in the Var.

"The vast majority of the soldiers of the largest French liberation army came from Africa: French North Africans, pieds noirs, Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian riflemen, zouaves, spahis, goumiers, riflemen called Senegalese but who actually came from all of sub-Saharan Africa, and among them Guineans, Ivorians. And yet, who among us remembers their name, their face today? France has a part of Africa in it. And on this Provençal soil, that part was that of the blood shed," acknowledged Emmanuel Macron, facing an audience of former combatants and former resistance fighters.