On Christmas Eve, the Algerian Parliament passed a law calling French colonial rule a crime, demanding an official apology and reparations from France. The legislation qualifies the executions, torture, nuclear tests, pillage of natural resources, among others, carried out from 1830 to 1962, as imprescriptible crimes. The text provides for sanctions against the glorification of colonialism and reinforces old demands, such as the restitution of archives, objects and cultural remains taken to France. Although it has no effect on international law, this action carries political weight.
In 2024, during a visit to Algiers, I had the opportunity to see to what extent the colonial memory is alive there. The scenes from the classic “The Battle of Algiers”, filmed in the Kasbah – the historic Arab center, very close to the imposing buildings of French architecture, facing the Mediterranean – offered a key to reading not only the past, but the Algerian present.
The National Mujahideen Museum, which cannot be filmed or photographed, displays life-size models of the torture practices employed by the French army. The Martyrs’ Memorial marks the landscape of Algiers and pays tribute to the more than a million dead of the War of Independence.
There are also French people who recognize and are embarrassed by the brutality of colonialism in Algeria. In 2004, while I was still a student in Paris, I had the opportunity to chat many afternoons with Mr. André Lafitte, a caregiver for the elderly, who had served on the French side during the Algerian War. He spoke, with regret, of the violence he witnessed and committed.
Transforming this vivid colonial memory into a foreign policy instrument deserves particular attention at this period when Algiers-Paris relations are going through one of the most tense phases since Algerian independence.
French support for the Moroccan plan for Western Sahara was interpreted by Algeria as a rupture in the historical balance that France said it wanted for the Maghreb. For Algiers, which supports the self-determination of the Sahrawi people and the Polisario Front, the French decision meant aligning with Rabat on one of the most sensitive issues in regional geopolitics.
In April, Algeria and France expelled diplomats from both countries after French authorities arrested an Algerian consular official as part of the investigation into the kidnapping of critical Algiers blogger Amir Boukhors. Ambassadors were summoned and cooperation mechanisms were temporarily suspended.
It is in this context that the new law gains political density. By legally qualifying colonization as a crime, the Algerian state is institutionalizing the position that has guided its diplomacy for years.
The French reaction was one of unease. The authorities reiterated their desire to dialogue on memory, but described the law as a hostile gesture at a time of accumulated tensions. Paris has resisted formal apologies, even though Macron has already acknowledged the brutality of the colonial system and its lasting effects.
It should be remembered that Algeria is a strategic gas supplier for Europe. And that France has one of the largest Algerian diasporas.
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