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On March 29, 1988, South African anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September was shot dead at close range in central Paris. In the 1970s, she had been imprisoned in her home country for her activities against the apartheid regime. Upon her release, she had been authorised to leave South Africa on the condition that she never return. September was the representative of Nelson Mandela’s ANC party in France and yet she claimed to be followed and watched. What did the French secret services know? FRANCE 24’s Caroline Dumay, Stefan Carstens and Nadine Theron revisit the case.
In December 2022, a French court dismissed a request filed by September’s family. They had sued the French state for gross negligence in hopes of reopening the investigation into her unsolved assassination.
September had campaigned hard for Europe to impose heavy sanctions on the South African regime and respect the arms embargo imposed by the United Nations. Was she murdered outside the ANC headquarters in Paris for investigating arms trafficking between France and South Africa? The activist had claimed that this illegal trafficking was coordinated at the South African embassy in Paris.
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