French President Emmanuel Macron has formally acknowledged, for the first time, that France waged a war marked by "repressive violence" in Cameroon during the final years of colonial rule and the early years of the country’s independence. The admission appears in a letter dated 30 July and sent to Cameroonian President Paul Biya; the document was made public on 12 August. Macron writes that he "assumes the role and responsibility of France" for operations conducted against independence movements before and after 1960, breaking with decades of official silence. The statement endorses the conclusions of a 1,000-page report delivered in January by a joint Franco-Cameroonian historians’ commission. The commission found that French colonial authorities and troops carried out widespread repression from roughly 1945 to 1971, causing what it describes as a full-scale war that likely claimed tens of thousands of lives. It also confirmed French responsibility for the deaths of prominent nationalist figures, including Ruben Um Nyobè, Paul Momo, Isaac Nyobè Pandjock and Jérémie Ndéléné between 1958 and 1960. Macron pledged to open French archives, support additional research and establish a bilateral working group to implement the commission’s recommendations, aiming to advance historical reconciliation and strengthen bilateral relations. The move extends the French leader’s broader effort to confront colonial-era abuses, following earlier acknowledgements related to Algeria and Rwanda.