A NEW film which describes the suffering of France’s Arab and African troops in the Second World War has moved President Chirac to restore full pensions to the 80,000 surviving veterans.

M Chirac is expected to announce the measure, which will cost the State more than £100 million (€148 million), after the opening tomorrow of Indigènes, a prize-winning feature on the little-known story of the colonial forces that fought in France, Italy and Germany in 1944-45.

The excitement over the film, entitled Days of Glory in English, is part of a general review in France of its conduct towards its former colonials and the failure to assimilate their descendants, some of whom rioted last year on their ghetto-like housing estates.

Indigènes, directed by Rachid Bouchareb and starring Jamel Debbouze, a popular comedy actor, exposes the way that 250,000 colonial servicemen were used as frontline cannon fodder, suffering a quarter of all French losses between 1939 and 1945. They were neglected after the withdrawals from Africa, including Algeria, in the 1950s and early 1960s. Their pensions were frozen in 1959 and the surviving 80,000 receive no more than one third of the £310 a month that white ex-servicemen receive.

Successive governments have promised to make amends, but the high costs have deterred them from more than minor gestures. M Chirac is said to have been moved when he watched Indigènes last week, said Hamlaoui Mekachera, the Minister for Veterans, who is of Algerian origin.

“Jacques Chirac . . . wants to make it fair between our countrymen and our foreign comrades. There is an obvious injustice. We must put an end to it,” M Mekachera said.

The film shows how the colonial troops were abused and humiliated by white officers as they defended France, which most had never visited before. The five male stars collectively won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

M Debbouze, who is a hero with young Arabs in France, said that the film was “the story of the infantrymen who fought for the motherland but who, on VE-Day, were not allowed to take part in the parade on the Champs Elysées”.

“Our role is to wake up consciences, to lance the boil at last,” he said. “If the kids on the estates are to discover their identity, they have to know what their parents went through.”

M Bouchareb, who has Algerian origins, said that his aim was “to open a forgotten chapter in the history of France”.

M Chirac’s decision is the latest to make amends for what campaigners, immigrant groups and left-wing historians see as the shameful conduct of France towards its colonial citizens. After an outcry from race campaigners, M Chirac repealed a new law last year that required teachers to emphasise the “positive role in the French presence overseas”.

The pressure for contrition has, however, prompted a backlash.

Pascal Bruckner, a leading philosopher, is about to publish a book called The Tyranny of Penitence, in which he castigates France for believing that it has to keep apologising for the sins of past generations.

Indigènes is on the programme of The Times BFI 50th London Film Festival and will be shown on October 30 and 31 at the Odeon West End

Altered reality

Bandit Queen 1994: Biopic of Phoolan Devi, lower-caste Indian woman. Exposed the problems of domestic abuse and caste system in India

Il Caso Mattei 1972: Italian industrialist Enrico Mattei died in mysterious circumstances. Film highlighted corruption

The Sorrow and the Pity 1969: The attack on the myth of resistance against the Nazis was banned in France for 10 years

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