Veterans given citizenship

Around a thousand of the sharpshooters from the former colonies of Sénégal, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Centrafrique are still alive but many have not managed to gain nationality since losing theirs when their home countries gained independence.

President Hollande said any of the “dogues noirs de l’Empire” [black dogs of the Em­pire] still living in France and who wanted citizenship could have it – and presented certificates to 28 of them at a ceremony at the Elysée.
The move came after a petition from Aïssata Seck, a councillor in Bondy, Seine-Saint-Denis, where a group of 19 of the troops live in a retirement home. Some had been refused citizenship due to problems over birth and marriage papers and her petition said “when these sharp­shooters were called into action, no one asked them to endure this infernal red tape”.