Algeria’s parliament is set to vote on Wednesday on a law declaring France’s colonisation of the country a ‘state crime’ and demanding an apology and reparations.
The vote comes as the two countries are embroiled in a major diplomatic crisis, and analysts say that while Algeria’s move is largely symbolic, it could still be politically significant.
The bill states that France holds “legal responsibility for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused”.
The proposed law “is a sovereign act”, parliament speaker Brahim Boughali was quoted by the APS state news agency as saying.
It represents “a clear message, both internally and externally, that Algeria’s national memory is neither erasable nor negotiable”, he added.
France’s colonisation of Algeria from 1830 until 1962 remains a point of tension in relations between the two countries.
French rule over Algeria was marked by mass killings and large-scale deportations, up until the bloody war of independence from 1954-1962.
Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians put the death toll lower – at 500,000 people in total, 400,000 of them Algerian.
French President Emmanuel Macron has previously acknowledged the colonisation of Algeria as a “crime against humanity”, but has stopped short of offering an apology.
Asked last week about the vote, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux said he would not comment on “political debates taking place in foreign countries”.
Hosni Kitouni, a researcher in colonial history at the University of Exeter in the UK, said that “legally, this law has no international scope and therefore is not binding for France”.
However, he added: “Its political and symbolic significance is important: it marks a rupture in the relationship with France in terms of memory.”
(with AFP)
After the Algerian parliament voted unanimously Wednesday to criminalise French colonisation and to demand an official apology, the French foreign ministry said the move was "manifestly hostile, both to the desire to resume Franco-Algerian dialogue and to calm, constructive work on issues of historical memory”.
This is the third time since 2001 that the Algerian parliament has taken up such a proposal. The apology demanded in the law would be a prerequisite for any “reconciliation of historical memory”.
On the left, politicians argue that French must confront its colonial past.
“Algeria is today an independent country and its parliament is free,” said hard left France Unbowed MP Thomas Porte.
“There is a reality: France committed crimes against humanity. France tortured, France killed. France owes apologies.”
Communist Senator Yann Brossat believes France should have already apologised, “without waiting for pressure from Algeria”.
Algerian MPs also passed an amendment that would allow the withdrawal of Algerian nationality from a dual national who commits acts deemed to undermine Algeria’s interests and security while abroad.