France used drafted African military reservists as forced labor on public works

Evidence

Recruitment, Carpot began in an even franker speech, would be acceptable if it were the first step toward assimilation and citizenship. But assimilation had never been the government’s goal, since there had been no serious attempt to educate Africans as Frenchmen: “Too often we have forgotten that education is the best instrument of progress and civilization, and the indispensable precondition to citizenship … Instead [of investing in education], under the pretext of allowing [the African] to evolve in his own milieu, you have always kept him apart, never consenting to raise him towards yourself.” Given this refusal of France to commit itself to the education and eventual assimilation of its subjects, Carpot declared, the imposition of military recruitment was out of the question. Moreover, he continued, such a policy would be dangerous, because it ignored fundamental realities about the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. West Africans, he argued, no more wanted obligatory military service than they desired French citizenship. Rightly or wrongly, they felt that France had dispossessed them of the land that was theirs by birthright. It thus made no sense to ask them to defend French national territory. Recruitment in this context could only turn them against France. “What,” he asked in a direct rebuke to Panty, “do Africans care about duty to the motherland?” France’s entire approach to governing Africans, he concluded bitterly, was to treat them as French citizens each time it was a question of obligations and duties, and to treat them as subjects each time it was a question of rights or privileges. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 502 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: French colonial authorities euphemized forced labor as obligatory public labor; Republican France justified forced labor by claiming it protected workers’ interests; French recruiters drained tens of thousands of Upper Volta workers for forced labor (+2 more)

Related

• France treated Africans as citizens for obligations but subjects for rights. (similarity 0.87)
• Each French West African colony’s labor fate hinged on land and population (similarity 0.83)
• African communes were graded so natives never reached full French-style autonomy. (similarity 0.83)
• France pursued assimilation and association simultaneously in its colonies. (similarity 0.82)
• France rejected legal status for deserving Africans to avoid extending citizenship rights (similarity 0.82)
• French recruiters drained tens of thousands of Upper Volta workers for forced labor (similarity 0.82)
• French colonial infrastructure relied on forced African military labor (similarity 0.82)
• French race policy required ruling each African ethnic group by its own chiefs (similarity 0.81)
• Assimile status defined which Africans fell under French court jurisdiction (similarity 0.81)
• Conscripting subjects who feel dispossessed of their land turns them against France (similarity 0.81)
• Racist beliefs about African laziness justified forced labor as necessary schooling (similarity 0.80)
• French citizenship in West Africa required Muslims to renounce personal status for civil law. (similarity 0.80)
• Forced labor for African infrastructure was formalized using military conscription categories (similarity 0.79)
• Even race-regeneration concern never made French officials question forced labor itself (similarity 0.79)
• Thousands fled French forced labor by migrating to the British Gold Coast (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• French colonial authorities euphemized forced labor as obligatory public labor #corroborates (0.70)
• French recruiters drained tens of thousands of Upper Volta workers for forced labor #expands (0.60)
• France treated Africans as citizens for obligations but subjects for rights. #expands (0.60) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 502
• Republican France justified forced labor by claiming it protected workers’ interests #corroborates (0.55)
• France’s euphemistic labor decree delayed enforcement in West Africa by three years #expands (0.55)