Charles de Gaulle wanted Frenchmen to lead the liberation of Paris
Posted on 04/06/2009 3:49:12 PM PDT by JoeProBono
Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a "whites only" victory. Many who fought Nazi Germany during World War II did so to defeat the vicious racism that left millions of Jews dead. Yet the BBC's Document programme has seen evidence that black colonial soldiers - who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces - were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital. By the time France fell in June 1940, 17,000 of its black, mainly West African colonial troops, known as the Tirailleurs Senegalais, lay dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Charles de Gaulle wanted Frenchmen to lead the liberation of Paris
I don’t believe it!
Those nice French people couldn’t be racist! Why, if they were racist, our media would be telling us!
BTTT
Should I care?
“I ‘ave no legs. Dey ‘et zem!”
This story doesn’t strike me as very believable. I find it hard to believe that two thirds of the Free French were Black. I know they had Colonies all around the world including Chad, Madagascar, North Africa, and lots in the South Pacific but no where near a majority of France and her possessions were in Sub-Saharan Africa.
why should I care?
Sounds like they didn’t allow any AMERICAN soldiers their either, regardless of color or race.
2/3’s???? No freaking way
One of the dirty little secrets of that era was that Hitler’s “master race” ideology was extremely popular even among many leaders in the Allied countries.
Yep.
After reading the entire article, It appears american and british troops were present in the liberation, but were not allowed to get there first.
That’s two and a half frogs!
I smell sitcom:
Virgil: Jacques, todee is ze dee I change my life!
Jacques: Shut up, Virgil, and eat ze flies. You will eat ze flies and you will LIKE zem!”
Why is this so hard to believe? We're not talking about the French army circa 1940. We're talking about what was left after the Germans overran almost all of the regular French army. That was the colonial forces.
We realize it was Colonial “and” French who did not go along with the Vichy government and yes I find it extremely hard to believe.
Why? What part of the French army do you think escaped the Germans in 1940? 1.6 million French soldiers were marched off to POW and slave labor camps in Germany. How many white military age males were left outside German controlled areas?
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