Algeria Passes Law Declaring France's Colonial Rule a Criminal Act
The Algerian legislature has voted unanimously for a law affirming French colonial rule of the country a criminal act and demanded an official apology and reparations.
Legislators, standing in the chamber adorned with scarves in the colours of the Algerian flag, shouted “vive l'Algérie” on the session day as they applauded the passage of the bill, which affirms that France holds “accountability for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused”.
A Significant Crisis and a Symbolic Gesture
The both nations are embroiled in a significant diplomatic crisis and observers say that while Algeria’s move is mostly gestural, it is still politically significant.
“a clear message, both domestically and internationally, that Algeria’s national memory is not erasable nor subject to negotiation.”
The legislation enumerates the “atrocities of colonial rule”, which encompass atomic tests, summary executions, “torture” and the “systematic plundering of resources”.
Demand for Reparations
It asserts that “full and fair compensation for all physical and psychological harms caused by colonial rule is an inalienable right of the state and its people”.
French governance over Algeria from 1830 until 1962 was a era marked by widespread deaths and forced displacements, culminating in the bloody war of independence from 1954 to 1962.
- Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people.
- Historians in France put the death toll at 500,000 in all, four hundred thousand of them Algerian.
French Reaction and Historical Perspective
The head of state, President Macron, has in the past acknowledged the colonial era of Algeria as a “grave injustice” but has stopped short of an official apology.
Asked last week about the parliamentary decision, a French foreign ministry representative stated he would not comment on “political debates taking place in other nations”.
Hosni Kitouni in the history of colonisation, commented that “legally, this law has little international force and therefore is not binding for the French state”. However, “its political and symbolic importance is considerable: it marks a rupture in the ties with France in terms of memory,” he said.
