France now 'open to dialogue' with Niger on long overlooked colonial atrocities

More than a century after its troops burned villages and looted cultural artefacts in the quest to colonise Niger, France has signalled willingness over possible restitution - but is yet to acknowledge responsibility.

- Eromo Egbejule

More than a century after its troops burned villages and looted cultural artefacts in the quest to colonise Niger, France has signalled willingness over possible restitution, but is yet to acknowledge responsibility.

The office of France's permanent representative to the UN wrote in a document seen by the Guardian: "France remains open to bilateral dialogue with the Nigerien authorities, as well as to any collaboration concerning provenance research or patrimonial cooperation."

The 19 June response was given to a letter dated two months earlier from a UN special rapporteur working on a complaint by four Nigerien communities representing descendants of victims of the 1899 Mission Afrique Centrale (MAC), one of the most violent colonial campaigns in Africa.

The letter, by Bernard Duhaime, a professor of international law at the University of Quebec in Montreal, said: "Although France was aware of the atrocities at the time, no MAC officer has ever been held responsible for these crimes... France has not conducted any official inquiry or acknowledged the horrors inflicted on the communities affected."

In 1899, French officers led by the captains Paul Voulet and Julien Chanoine, marched tirailleurs - as the African soldiers under their command were known - through present-day Niger. They killed thousands and looted supplies, terrorising local people into compliance. The next year, Niger was officially absorbed into French West Africa.

"I have come to establish an empire," Voulet reportedly said, according to the American historian Matthew G Stanard in his 2009 book