Algerian-descended film director Rachid Bouchareb's powerful new war film, 'Days of Glory' which tells the little known story of the 300,000 Arab and north African troops who helped liberate France and Italy during World War II, has helped shame the French authorities into belatedly paying full pensions to the 80,000 surviving ex-colonial soldiers, repairing a half century of injustice. These men have since 1959 received a fraction of what French military veterans receive.
Bouchareb (French born of Algerian descent) and his co-producer, comic actor Jamel Debbouze (also French born but of Moroccan origin) hope the film, which is now showing to packed French cinemas, especially in the multi-racial suburbs, will raise awareness of the deliberately ignored sacrifices made by 'indigenous' soldiers. They say it aims to persuade young French people of African origin they are part of France, and to form an important turning point in the country's race relations.
The film centres on four north African soldiers who enlist in the French army in 1943. Their campagin starts in Italy and continues through the southern region of Provence and the Vosges before a handful of survivors fight a final battle in an Alsatian village against a German battalion.
The central character, Said, is played by Debbouze, 31, who is mostly known outside France for his role as the shy grocer's boy in the highly successful French movie Amelie (2001). His mother begs him not to enlist, but he is determined to fight for France. During the campaig in the south, Said's comrade Messaoud (played by Roschdy Zem) falls in love with a French woman - but unbeknown to him officers are censoring his letters to her.
Abdelkader (played by Sami Bouajila) resents the second-class citizen treatment dished out in the French army, which refuses to promote Muslims beyond the rank of corporal, and he leaves. Yasir (played by Samy Naceri) agrees in principle with hot-headed Abdelkader, but stays on and displays loyalty and bravery under fire.
Many incidents in the movie are based on real events, such as mini riot when the colonial soliders are told that tomatoes are only for the white soliders.
The men's sergeant, a 'pied noir' or white Algerian colonist (played by Bernard Blancan) who is constantly torn between devolution to his troops and his own mixed feeling about North Africans - is revealed - to his chagrin - to be half-Arab. Debbouze, Blancan, Naceri, Zem and Bouajila shared the male actor's prize when the film was screened at the Cannes film festival in May.
The story is loosely based on the actual history of the colonial 'tirrailleurs' or soldiers who volunteered or were coerced into joining the French arm. To make 'Days of Glory', Bouchareb spent two years gathering information and anecdotes from survivors.
There were 550,000 'tirrailleurs' in the French army in 1944, mostly recruited in the French African colonies. Of these (apart from colonists of French origin), there were 134,000 Algerians, 73,000 Moroccans, 25,000 Tunisians and 92,000 men from French colonies in black Africa. One quarter of all the French soliders who died in the 1939-45 war - 60,000 men - were from France's 'African legion'. About 10,000 casualties were white colonialists. The remaining 50,000 were brown or black.
"Despite their many rejections, despite the unpaid pensions, the veterans have no spirit of hatred," said Bouchareb. The same 'Days of Glory' opened at French cinemas, France's prime minister, Dominique De Villepin announced that from next year, around 84,000 World War II veterans, mainly from the Maghreb and black Africa, will receive the same pension as French veterans. The latter currently receive around 690 euros a month, while Senegalese veterans receive 230 euros, and Moroccan and Tunisian vets, just 61 euros.
The move, which will cost the French state approximately 100 million euros per year, recognises "the country's delay in recognising officially France's colonial veterans," De Villepin said. It was only in 2002 that France, at the behest of president Jacques Chirac - who attend the premier of 'Days of Glory ' - began the process by paying small pensions to the colonial veterans, whose pensions and compensation was frozen in 1959 by France's then-president Charles De Gaulle.
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
