Love, Trauma and War: The Tirailleurs sénégalais and Sexual-Racial Politics in 1920s France

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of male colonial subjects as soldiers and workers in the period from 1914–18 caused great anxiety to the French authorities who actively sought to police relations between black men and French women. This article will tease out questions surrounding sexual-racial politics, focusing on the case of Lamine Senghor. In his articles/speeches, Senghor made repeated references to the sacrifices he had made on behalf of France during the First World War: seriously wounded at Verdun, he was, like many tirailleurs, physically and mentally scarred by the war. If the shattered body of the tirailleur was a significant marker of his identity, the proof of the dette du sang owed to the colonized by the French, what does Senghor's marriage to a white Frenchwoman tell us about sex, race and politics in 1920s France?