The BBC interviewed a number of Sengalese World War II veterans who helped liberate Paris sixty years ago. The piece detailed the French government's "crystallization" legislation passed at the end of the war, which froze African veterans' pensions and prevented their widows from collecting money after their death. While these laws have been repealed, the Sengalese veterans and their counterparts in other former colonies still receive less money that French veterans:
The French government points out that it can't possibly afford to pay out the millions of dollars it would need, were it to fully satisfy the African veterans' demands - and pay them the same pensions as the French ex-servicemen.
Paris says that, given the disparity between the economy in France and those in its former colonies, it would be unrealistic for all veterans to get the same.
Indeed France says the additional money the Senegalese veterans are now getting actually gives them more purchasing power in Senegal than their French counterparts in France.
I am not a economist, but this is the flimsiest excuse I have ever heard. One must wonder if veterans living in countries with a higher standard of living receive less money? I suspect that they do not, and this 'purchasing power' argument is only being used to justify not paying the veterans the money that they are owed.
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