Sami Bouajila and Jamel Debbouze in "Days of Glory"

If you get a particularly insistent sense of déjà vu while watching this World War II drama from France, it may be because you’ve read George Packer’s damning article in last week’s New Yorker about the treatment of Iraqis who work for the American forces in their home country. Not only are their services, beginning with a knowledge of the language and mores of the region, undervalued and underutilized; Packer writes that they are offered little or no protection from sectarian assassins, and have almost no hope of being allowed to emigrate to the US when we leave. In a few years they will almost inevitably find themselves in much worse circumstances than they would have been had they not offered to work for us.

An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and a cause celebre in France, the stirring Days of Glory was made in the hopes of prodding the French government to redress a similarly shameful situation. Soldiers from France’s African colonies who fought against the Nazis in the war received pensions that were a fraction of those given to French soldiers. Worse, those pensions were stopped entirely when the colonies became independent in the 1960s.

Illustrating a chapter of the war’s history that is unknown to many Europeans, Days of Glory shows that the indigènes (the film’s original title) were not a minor factor in the war effort. With France occupied by Germany since 1940 and 1.4 million of its soldiers held captive, the French army ceased to exist in all but name: General de Gaulle was left after the German victory with fewer than 7,000 men. Over the next three years, those ranks swelled with 700,000 fighters and auxiliary personnel from North Africa, largely Algeria, Morocco and Senegal.

The film opens during a recruitment push in the summer of 1943. Anyone who saw The Battle of Algiers when it was re-released a few years ago will be surprised at the sight of Algerian men volunteering to join the war. Gearing up for battle, they sing how they have “Come from the colonies to save the motherland/We’re here to die at her feet.” These are the fathers and grandfathers of the economically disenfranchised youths whose car-burning riots terrified France last year.

What soon becomes apparent is that the French officers regard these recruits as little more than cannon fodder. They are volunteered to lead an attack on a hill held by German gunners that amounts to certain suicide for the men in the front line.

And despite the fact that these troops propel the French to their first victory against the Germans since 1940, they are treated as second-class soldiers at every step, from promotional opportunities to the food they’re allowed to eat in the mess line. The French ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity, it seems, only applies to the French themselves.

Days of Glory sidesteps the perennial problem of war films—grimy men in combat uniforms and helmets tend to look alike—by concentrating on a few in particular. Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila), from the Algerian city of Satif wants to get ahead in the world, and holds firm to the belief that his unwavering efforts will eventually be recognized by his superiors. Said (Jamel Debbouze, a popular French comedian who has the squat build and sad eyes of Lou Costello; you may recall him from the hit Amelie) is an illiterate but loyal Moroccan peasant who only wants to find a job he can do without embarrassing himself. Messaoud (Roschdy Zem) finds both love and disappointment with a French woman who expresses to him her deep gratitude for the liberation of her village. And Martinez (Bernard Blancan) is the hard-nosed sergeant trying to hide the fact that he is also of Arab blood. All are splendid, and shared an ensemble award for Best Actor at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

It only sounds like a Hollywood war film of the 1940s, with a clichéd cast of ethnically diverse soldiers sharing a foxhole. American viewers may actually find them less diverse than they are: following the dialogue in subtitles unfortunately robs the film of the tension created by the interplay between the “elevated” French and “base” Arabic languages. Director Rachid Bouchareb, himself of Algierian heritage and a well-known producer in France, takes seriously his responsibility of preserving a lost part of history, and his story is governed less by rage at injustice than respect for what these men accomplished.

It should be noted that he succeeded at his other purpose: after seeing a pre-release screening of the film last year, French president Jacques Chirac order the pensions of foreign soldiers who fought in the French army to be brought into line with those of French soldiers.