The Algerian legislature has unanimously approved a law stating France’s colonisation of the nation a crime and called for an official apology and compensation.
Legislators, standing in the chamber adorned with scarves in the colors of the Algerian flag, chanted “vive l'Algérie” on Wednesday as they celebrated the passage of the legislation, which declares that the former colonial power holds “legal responsibility for its history of colonisation in Algeria and the tragedies it caused”.
A Diplomatic Crisis and a Political Gesture
The two countries are embroiled in a major diplomatic crisis and observers say that while Algeria’s action is mostly gestural, it is still a major political statement.
“an unambiguous signal, both domestically and internationally, that Algeria’s national memory is not erasable nor subject to negotiation.”
The law enumerates the “crimes of colonial rule”, which encompass nuclear tests, summary executions, “physical and psychological torture” and the “widespread looting of resources”.
Demand for Compensation
It states that “full and fair reparation for all physical and psychological harms caused by French colonisation is an inalienable right of the state and its people”.
French governance over Algeria from the 19th century until independence was a period marked by mass killings and large-scale deportations, all the way up to the bloody independence war from the mid-1950s to 1962.
- Algerian officials states the war claimed one and a half million people.
- Historians in France estimate the fatalities at 500,000 in all, four hundred thousand of them Algerian.
French Response and Historical Perspective
The head of state, President Macron, has in the past acknowledged the colonial era of Algeria as a “crime against humanity” but has stopped short of an official apology.
Questioned recently about the parliamentary decision, a diplomatic representative said he would not discuss “internal political matters taking place in foreign countries”.
A researcher in colonial history, commented that “legally, this law has little international force and therefore is not binding for France”. However, “its political and symbolic significance is important: it marks a break in the ties with France in terms of historical memory,” he said.
