I read the wikipedia article, because I'm french and I've never heard of it; sure, I knew there were terrible things done in Algeria, and knew about the colonisation, but we studied the 2nd World War a lot, and I mean a LOT, of times during our scolarity, and I never heard of it.
It's awful. The above message is true and succint : the Senegalese shooters (which were in fact only partially senegalese and regrouped black people from all French-colonized Africa) was brought to mainland France, fought the nazis, were captured, and were put in prisons in the occupied France. A lot escaped, being protected and hidden by white people, and many joined the Free France, and fought alonside all the other people in the Resistance, forming bonds and sometimes families with white french people.
When all of France was liberated, the totality of the "Senegalese" shooters was put in boats as quickly as possible, for a thing called the "whitening of the war". They were paid really inconsistently, but assured they would be paid in full once arrived. Plus, lots of them had gained ranks during the Resistance but once again the army was very inconsistent on whther it would take that into consideration.
Once arrived, they were not paid, and all the milatary leader in place in the colonies (which, surprise, were still incredible loyals to nazi-cooperator Petain's ideologies) found suspicious how much they were owed, and were doing everything they could to not give straight answers. The shooters had been in free france and been treated as full equals by the people there, plus had been in contact with the black american soldiers, so the White People Superiority had been eradicated to them, and they were not afraid anymore. They blocked a high-ranking white guy's car, asking him their pay, and their rank & cothes. The guy finally escaped by promising that they would have it, and then ordered ALL OF THE WEAPONS AND TANKS from the French colonies be brought to him & organized with the white, often high ranking people there. He sent a telegram at 1 in the morning to mainland france, announcing what he was going to do and asking for permission (nobody answered, probably because it was 1 in the morning and the war was not over yet). They told all the shooters to come to the main place of the camp, and then... well, the archives are missing, and the only testimonies are from the officers. They said someone opened fire, multiple historians thing they opened it themselves. The shooters were killed. The white officers only recieved one bullet, from their own type of gun.
The number of victims for this massacre goes from 35 (number very, very probably false) to 70 to 191 to "at least 300" to more than 800.
The survivors were put on trial for mutiny, and both judge and jury were white people who were there the day of the massacre, so, yeah. The minister of Colonies vehemently disapproved of that massacre, but his successor complimented it. Because of ww2, there was still propaganda and surveillance of mail. The massacre was known almost immediatly in all of French-Colonised Africa, but it was buried in the mainland, only getting rembered because of incredibly difficult work done by historians - and the voices of the ex-colonized.
And I've never heard of it.
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