“We are returning home to live with our grandchildren” after “the horrors of war and life”: veteran of the wars in Indochina and Algeria in the service of France, Yoro Diao returns definitively to Senegal on Friday 28 April with other skirmishers, after a battle with the French administration for the recognition of their “sacrifices”.
At 95, he is no longer obliged to spend at least six months a year in France, far from his family, to be entitled to his pension. “It’s a win!” “, he launches to AFP from his studio in a home in Bondy, in the Paris region. The excitement and upheaval of the big departure to return to Kaolack (central Senegal) are palpable there. He receives guests in impeccable costume, occasionally sporting his numerous military medals. A benevolent look and smile soften his emaciated face.
Three suitcases pile up on the floor, cluttering the space between his bed and a desk overflowing with administrative files. Another suitcase was wedged under his bed, full of photos of family and “comrades” veterans, “memories” that he looks at moved, including the ceremony where he received the Legion of Honor in 2017. “C It was President Hollande who was supposed to decorate me, but he didn’t have time. So he delegated the prefect…”, he slips mischievously. Reminders are placed here and there because his memory is playing tricks on him. In the stress, he thus put in his moving container his passport stored in a jacket…
Ultimate Battles
The French corps of “Senegalese Tirailleurs”, created during the Second Empire (1852-1870) and dissolved in the 1960s, brought together soldiers from the former colonies of Africa. The term ended up designating all the soldiers from Africa who fought under the French flag. They took part in the two world wars and the wars of decolonization.
According to the Association for the Memory and History of Senegalese Riflemen, thirty-seven men – all of Senegalese origin and having served mainly in Indochina and Algeria – live in France. Among them, a first group – Mr. Diao and eight others, aged 85 to 96 – will fly to Senegal on Friday.
This return was made possible thanks to a derogatory measure decided by the French government, which allows them to live permanently in their country of origin, without losing their minimum old-age allowance of 950 euros per month. Exceptional state aid finances their move, their return flight and their resettlement.
These measures are the final battles led by Aïssata Seck, 43, granddaughter of a rifleman and president of the association. She has been fighting for these “elders” for ten years. “Shocked” by their living conditions and their often “humiliating” difficulties in their administrative procedures.
“Gave her youth to France”
“There was negligence” from the State towards them, insists the regional councilor of Ile-de-France and municipal councilor in Bondy, recalling that France only lifted in 2006 the freezing measures which blocked the pensions of colonial veterans, unlike those of French veterans who were upgraded.
In 2016, she launched a petition and former President François Hollande granted the skirmishers French nationality in 2017. Then the government of Emmanuel Macron announced this exceptional measure for their allowance in early 2023. “I didn’t give up” to remember their “sacrifices”, says Ms. Seck.
A volunteer in the French army by family tradition, Yoro Diao says he “gave his youth to France” and was “touched in morale” by the loss in combat of comrades-in-arms. In particular that of his great friend Fernand Lotier, a French soldier killed at his feet in Indochina. “He took a bullet to the chest. He said to me, “Yoro, I’m going to die!”. I said, “No Lotier, though!” Then he showed me his wound…”
Mr. Diao vividly recounts the hell of this war in Indochina where he spent three years from 1951, in “torrential rains”, the “carrion animals that ate human flesh”. “It was terrible… I was a medical officer, head of the stretcher bearers. [I was transporting] the wounded under enemy fire. It’s “baraka”, I was not injured but I lost a lot of comrades, “he breathes. Then he will be mobilized for the war in Algeria, for two long years.
” Better late than never “
This obligation to spend six months a year in France, Mr. Diao lived it with incomprehension and suffered “isolation”, not having the means to bring his family. With modesty, he confides to being bruised not to have been at his wife’s side when she died in 2017. “I lost her like that, without being present… We had 40 years of marriage, it hurt! »
In 2015, he went to Senegal twice (instead of once as required) to take care of her. Since 2016, he has been sanctioned by the French administration, which debits him 66 euros per month and still demands more than 13,000 euros. “Compared to my military career, it’s hard…”, says Mr. Diao.
According to him, the latest government measures are thus “late”. It “took too long to coincide with our lives…”. But “better late than never,” he concedes, speaking of his joy at seeing his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “I’m going to live well, I’m going to eat, I’m going to walk around the village. Aïssata Seck is “very happy” for the nine skirmishers, who “return serenely”. “It’s the return of their dignity,” she says.
