Algerian parliament declares French colonial rule a crime

Lawmakers in the African state have unanimously approved legislation demanding an apology and reparations from France for historical abuses

Algeria’s parliament has passed a landmark law declaring France’s 132 years of colonial rule in the North African nation a crime against humanity amid deteriorating relations between the two countries over their troubled history.

On Wednesday, lawmakers in the People’s National Assembly, Algeria’s lower house, unanimously passed the bill, which was formally introduced at a parliamentary session on Saturday. The law states that France bears “legal responsibility for its colonial past… and the tragedies it caused,” adding that “full and fair compensation for all material and moral damages caused by French colonization is an inalienable right of the Algerian state and people.”

The vote will send “a clear message, both internally and externally, that Algeria’s national memory is neither erasable nor negotiable,” parliament speaker Ibrahim Boughali said, according to the state news agency APS.

France colonized Algeria from 1830 until the African state won independence in 1962 after a bloody war and years of systematic violence, torture, and massacres carried out by French forces.

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The passage of the law comes after decades of calls from Algiers and civil society for France to accept full responsibility for its colonial actions, including the Algerian War of Independence, which killed hundreds of thousands of locals. The government has also repeatedly expressed concern over the lasting consequences of nuclear tests, including the detonation of the plutonium-filled Blue Jerboa bomb and 16 other nuclear explosions conducted by France in Algeria’s Sahara desert regions between 1960 and 1966.

While some progress has been made in recent years, such as French President Emmanuel Macron’s recognition of specific atrocities, Paris has yet to issue a full, official apology for the broader history of abuse.

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The new legislation demands that French authorities offer an apology and reparations for the atrocities such as nuclear tests, extrajudicial killings, physical and psychological torture, and the systematic plundering of resources.

Already fraught relations between Paris and Algiers have deteriorated further since July 2024, when France reversed its long-standing position and endorsed Morocco’s claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara. Algeria, a staunch supporter of the Sahrawi independence movement, condemned the shift, triggering a diplomatic row marked by reciprocal measures, including the withdrawal of privileges for diplomatic staff in both countries.