Regard croisé sur Brazzaville entre la capitale de l’Afrique Équatoriale Française et la capitale de la France libre de 1940 à 1942

This article offers a reflection on the major historical role that Brazzaville played simultaneously as the capital of French Equatorial Africa (AEF) and the capital of Free France during the period from 1940 to 1942.By playing this dual role, Brazzaville was therefore at the center of the whole issue of resistance and the liberation both of the French who lived under Hitler’s German occupation and of the natives subjected to indigenism by the French. Indeed, the liberation of France starts from Brazzaville where General de Gaulle launched the manifesto announcing the creation of the Empire Defense Council, on October 27, 1940; the natives, by appropriating the resistance of their oppressor, were already in turn building their own liberation which would culminate in the famous Brazzaville Conference of 1944 where the question of their emancipation was raised for the first time.