Camp de Thiaroye

"December 1, 1944, 3 o'clock in the morning". This text suddenly appears during a film reconstruction of historical events that took place in the military camp of Thiaroye at the end of November and beginning of December 1944. It marks the documented beginning of a massacre by French colonial troops of recently repatriated West African soldiers who had fought with the Free French against the Wehrmacht. This location in time is only one of various extra-filmic coordinates (songs, archive material, book titles) that place the brutal suppression of a legitimate protest in a colonial context. (mg)