A law criminalizing French colonisation between 1830 and 1962 was unanimously adopted by the Algerian parliament on Wednesday.
The new Algerian law holds the French state “legally responsible for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it engendered.”
It also demands an official apology from France for the excess of its colonial past in the North African country whose pre-independence leaders fought a bitter war of liberation against the European colonisers between 1954 and 1962.
The legislation also defines the “collaboration of the harkis,” the name given to Algerian auxiliaries of the French army, as “high treason” and provides for the punishment of anyone who glorifies or justifies colonisation.
Algerian MPs applauded the passage of the bill which stipulates that “full and equitable compensation for all material and moral damages caused by French colonisation is an inalienable right for the Algerian state and people”.
Meanwhile France’s foreign affairs ministry described the law as “a manifestly hostile initiative, both to the desire to resume Franco-Algerian dialogue and to calm discussions on historical issues”.
A spokesperson for the ministry emphasised that France was “not in the business of commenting on Algerian domestic politics,” but could only say the move is deplorable.
The subject of French colonisation in Algeria is a highly sensitive matter, remaining one of the main sources of tension between Paris and Algiers.
APA