Algeria passes law declaring French colonisation a crime | Algeria
The Algerian parliament unanimously approved the law criminalizing France’s colonization of the country and demanded an apology and compensation.
MPs standing in the hall wearing scarves in the colors of the national flag chanted “Long live Algeria” on Wednesday, while applauding the adoption of the bill stating that France bears “legal responsibility for the colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused”.
The two countries are in the midst of a major diplomatic crisis, and analysts say Algeria’s move, while largely symbolic, is still politically significant.
Parliament speaker Ibrahim Boughali told the APS state news agency that the vote would send “a clear message, both internally and externally, that Algeria’s national memory is neither erasable nor negotiable.”
The legislation lists “crimes of French colonization” such as nuclear testing, extrajudicial executions, “physical and psychological torture” and “systematic plunder of resources”.
“It is an inalienable right of the Algerian state and people to receive full and fair compensation for all material and moral damages caused by French colonialism,” he says.
France’s rule over Algeria from 1830 to 1962 was a period marked by mass murders and large-scale deportations until the bloody war of independence from 1954 to 1962.
Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians estimate the death toll at 500,000 in total, including 400,000 Algerians.
French President Emmanuel Macron had previously deemed the colonization of Algeria a “crime against humanity” but refrained from apologizing.
Asked about the vote last week, French foreign ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux said he would not comment on “political debates taking place in foreign countries.”
Hosni Kitouni, a colonial history researcher at the University of Exeter in England, said that “legally, this law has no international scope and is therefore not binding on France.” But “its political and symbolic significance is significant: it marks a rupture in relations with France in terms of memory,” he said.
