France’s forgotten Senegalese world wars soldiers finally win last battle over pension rights

France’s African soldiers, known ‘as Senegalese tirailleurs’ who fought in the world wars and the country’s colonial conflicts, have now won their final battle — the surviving fighters will be able to live out their days with their families back in Africa after a French government U-turn on their pension rights.

The decision, made in Paris, on Wednesday January 4, allows an easier process of claiming pensions for some of the last survivors in France from a colonial-era infantry corps that recruited tens of thousands of African soldiers to fight in French wars around the world.

It follows a years-long campaign on behalf of the “tirailleurs Sénégalais,” who were recruited to fight from Senegal and other former French ruled nations in sub-Saharan Africa. The sad part of the story is that, according to the government’s Solidarity Ministry, the pension decision concerns only 22 of the former soldiers who collect a 950-euro monthly payment.

They’ll no longer have to spend six months of the year in France to be eligible and will continue receiving their pension payments even if they move away permanently, the ministry added. The decision, applying a “principal of tolerance” for the veterans, will be formalized in a government letter to be published in coming days.

Many tens of thousands of African recruits served in tirailleur regiments, in colonial wars, in both World Wars, and in France’s Vietnam and Algeria wars before being disbanded in the early 1960s. In Senegal, the head of the National Office for Veterans and Victims of War said the decision was overdue, while others said it came too late.