France remembers troops of southern D-Day landing

THE FORGOTTEN D-DAY…

ELAINE GANLEY

PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy paid homage Friday on a Riviera beach to soldiers from French colonies who 65 years ago landed in southern France to help defeat the Nazis in what is known as the "forgotten D-Day."

But in Paris, these colonial soldiers who slipped off the pages of history , and also the French bankroll , demonstrated, still hoping for a larger military pension for the estimated 80,000 of them still alive.

Without waiting for the August anniversary of the landing in Provence, Sarkozy used the 64th anniversary of Victory in Europe, or V-E Day, to praise those who have received little recognition for their feat.

The Aug. 15, 1944, southern landing in Provence may not have decided the war, but it "played an absolutely decisive role in France’s participation in the final victory," Sarkozy said in a speech on La Nartelle beach in Sainte-Maxime.

French forces, including from African colonies, played a major role in liberating southern France, comprising more than half of the estimated 350,000 soldiers that participated in Operation Dragoon.

Sarkozy noted the Moroccan battalions, the Senegalese and the "spahis" , or North African cavalry , fought for France "like for their mother country, sparing neither pain nor their blood."

France "will not forget their sacrifice," he said.

However, some veterans of the former African colonies are still pressing for a pension equal to that of French veterans, after decades of earning 30 percent or less of what their French colleagues earn.

At a Paris demonstration, "The Forgotten of the Republic," an association fighting for the rights of colonial soldiers, denounced discrimination toward the so-called indigenous soldiers from nearly two dozen African colonies. A dozen aging African vets bundled in heavy coats were present.

"We must clear this debt," said lawmaker Alain Rousset, who has filed a bill to align pensions for all veterans, regardless of their origins.

France gave the 80,000 vets from former colonies a small increase in 2002. To help justify the discrepancy in pension, France had argued that the difference was due to varying costs of living in France and former colonies.

In 2006, then-President Jacques Chirac said colonial soldiers still living would get the same amount as French vets as of 2007, but the increase in certain stipends was small and did not concern the critical military pension, said Naima Charai, a regional counselor for the Aquitaine region who helped organize the gathering.

"I joined the army in 1953 and I did Indochina, tough with all the mosquitoes, and then I did (the independence war in) Algeria," said Radouane Salah, a Moroccan living meagerly in France for the last five years. "I don’t get much."

Another Moroccan, who declined to identify himself, said he gets euro80 ($107) per month.

A singer from Mali, Rokia Traore, saluted the vets "who still speak of France like its their country."

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Associated Press Writer Thibault Leroux contributed to this report.