France’s President Emmanuel Macron has formally recognised what he called France’s “repressive violence” in Cameroon during and after the country’s fight for independence in the late 1950s – a rare admission of a long-overlooked part of France’s colonial history.

French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that France waged a war marked by “repressive violence” in Cameroon before and after the country’s independence in 1960 in a letter made public Tuesday. It is France’s first official acknowledgment of its repression of Cameroon's independence movement as a war.

French President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged the violence committed by his country's forces in Cameroon during and after the Central African nation's struggle for independence. It followed a joint report by Cameroonian and French historians examining France's suppression of independence movements from 1945 to 1971.