Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: ALGERIA’S Parliament on December 24 unanimously passed a law declaring France’s colonisation of the North African state a crime, and demanding an apology and reparations. The law also criminalises the glorification of colonialism, state-run TV reports.
The vote is the latest sign of increasingly strained diplomatic relations between the two countries, with some observers saying they are at their lowest since Algeria gained independence 63 years ago, BBC reports. France’s colonisation of Algeria between 1830 and 1962 was marked by mass killings, large-scale deportations and ended in a bloody war of independence. Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians put the death toll much lower. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has previously acknowledged the colonisation of Algeria was a “crime against humanity” but has not offered an apology.
Lawmakers wore scarves in the colours of the national flag and chanted “long live Algeria” as they applauded the bill’s passage through parliament, AFP news agency reports. The legislation states that France has “legal responsibility” for the “tragedies it caused”, and “full and fair” compensation was an “inalienable right of the Algerian state and people”. It comes at a time of growing pressure on Western powers to offer reparations for slavery and colonialism, and to return looted artefacts still kept in their museums.
Algerian lawmakers have been demanding that France return a 16th Century bronze canon, known as Baba Merzoug, meaning “Blessed Father”, that was regarded as the protector of Algiers, now Algeria’s capital. French forces captured the city in 1830, on their third attempt, and removed the cannon – which is now in the port city of Brest in north-western France.
In 2020, France returned the remains of 24 Algerian fighters who were killed resisting French colonial forces in the 19th Century. Last month, Algeria hosted a conference of African states to push for justice and reparations. Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf said that a legal framework would ensure that restitution was neither regarded as “a gift nor a favour”.
