Analyze/ As a logical continuation of the period under the mandate of the League of Nations (LON) entrusted to the French and British for the case of Cameroon in particular, the period under the supervision of the United Nations Organization (UNO) entrusted to these same two powers was a process of emancipation of a people deemed incapable of supporting themselves and who therefore had to follow a process of empowerment, particularly during the period under tutelage which had to end with an independence which implied the achievement of complete autonomy which itself takes into account the political and administrative autonomy that we still had to fight to have because by providing Cameroon for example with a political institution, the status of the framework law Defferre did not grant complete autonomy to a Territory with enormous economic potential.
After the Second World War, an important phase in the process of decolonization of African territories was launched. Indeed, following the conference held in the capital of free French Africa, namely Brazzaville from January 30 to February 10, 1944 and organized by the French committee of national liberation (CFLN) in order to define the future of the French colonial empire in Africa, has been created by the constitution of the fourth French republic a unifying geographical concept allowing France to better establish its hegemony over its external dependencies through a reform of its colonial system which notably required an implementation of the promises resulting from the Brazzaville conference, namely: the liberalization of the colonial system, the political representation of indigenous people, and the economic and social development of the Territory.
The preamble to the 1946 constitution specifies that France forms with overseas countries a union based on equality of rights and duties without distinction of race or religion. Article 60 of the same constitution specifies that the French union is formed on the one hand, of the French republic which includes metropolitan France, the overseas departments and territories and on other parts, the territories and States associates.
Unlike the associated States which bring together the States previously placed under the protectorate regime, namely: firstly the empire of Annan-Tonkin and Cochinchina which were part of French Indochina, secondly the regency of Tunis and thirdly the empire Moroccan, the associated territories were Cameroon and Togo whose mandate had been given to France.
Also read : Cameroon and other french colonies in Africa in the First and second world war
The objective of France through the French union was to maintain its sovereignty and its authority over the territories of black Africa in particular through colonizing techniques of peoples deemed inferior, namely association and assimilation which are respectively “the recognition of the originality of the colonies and the desire to establish links between entities perceived as fundamentally different for the first, and a desire to reduce the existing gaps between the metropolis and the colonies, with the limit of complete merger for the second. » Indeed, even if the French union was part of a logic of decolonization, we had to fight for this freedom which was not acquired. Even if it was necessary to reform the colonial system to allow the former colonies to emancipate themselves little by little until they obtained their respective independence which began to become official at the beginning of the 1960s in French black Africa in particular, it was more a question of reforming the colonial empire to better preserve it, that is to say, to preserve the achievements and delay the attainment of independences as much as possible. Even if at the end of the two great wars, the French and British were granted the administration of a Territory formerly under German protectorate, Cameroon was not officially recognized as an extension of the French Territory. The period under mandate and that of supervision aimed to lead Cameroon to its independence. But France has done everything possible to officially consider this territory as its own. Some sources specify that this project (namely the integration of Cameroon into the French Union) didn't stop after it was rejected by United Nations Organization. The colonial empire, through its 1946 constitution, recognized this territory as a full member of its Territory although following a process of empowerment which was to end with independence. A choice which corresponded to the project of the popular republican movement (1944-1967) which shared the same project as Doctor Louis-Paul Aujoulat, French deputy from Cameroon following the creation in 1946 of the representative assembly of Cameroon (ARCAM) namely to deny the specificity of other peoples and convert them to our image, that is to say to the image of France. A point of view more favourable to an idea of assimilation.
The French Union was certainly a decisive step in the process of decolonization of African territories, but it was not intended to grant general autonomy to the territories of black Africa. We had to wait ten years later, notably from 1956 and 1957 in Cameroon, thanks in particular to nationalist initiatives, to witness the appointment of an autonomous government which announced the end of a long period of subjugation. The French Union itself was dissolved by the French constitution still in force of October 4, 1958. This constitutional regime of the fifth republic, revised 25 times to date, was already more favourable to the sovereignty of Territories and the right of people to manage themselves their Territories.
The decolonization process certainly had veiled objectives which aimed in particular to strengthen the colonial empire but it still resulted in a succession of independence in French Africa in general and in Cameroon in particular where, like everywhere in Africa, it was necessary to fight for its rights to truly achieve total independence that the French community created in 1958 to replace the French union favoured more because it recognized African Territories as States even if their degrees of sovereignty remained restricted.
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