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Algeria’s parliament has voted unanimously for a piece of legislation affirming France’s colonisation of the nation a crime and called for an official apology and compensation.

Lawmakers, gathered in parliament wearing scarves in the colours of the Algerian flag, chanted “long live Algeria” on Wednesday as they celebrated the approval of the legislation, which declares that the former colonial power holds “legal responsibility for its history of colonisation in Algeria and the atrocities it caused”.

A Significant Strain and a Symbolic Gesture

The both nations are locked in a major diplomatic crisis and analysts say that while Algeria’s move is mostly symbolic, it is still politically significant.

“a clear message, both internally and internationally, that the nation's historical memory is neither erasable nor subject to negotiation.”

The law lists the “atrocities of French colonisation”, which encompass nuclear tests, summary executions, “physical and psychological torture” and the “widespread looting of national wealth”.

Call for Reparations

It asserts that “full and fair compensation for all material and moral harms caused by French colonisation is an inalienable right of the Algerian state and its people”.

France’s rule over Algeria from the 19th century until independence was a period marked by widespread deaths and forced displacements, culminating in the bloody independence war from the mid-1950s to 1962.

• Algeria states the war killed 1.5 million people.
• French historians put the death toll at half a million in total, 400,000 of them Algerian.

Official Response and Academic Perspective

The French president, President Macron, has in the past recognized the colonial era of Algeria as a “crime against humanity” but has declined to offer an apology.

Questioned last week about the vote, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said he would not discuss “political debates taking place in other nations”.

A researcher in the history of colonisation, commented that “from a legal standpoint, this law has no international scope and therefore is not enforceable for France”. However, “its diplomatic and emblematic significance is important: it signifies a rupture in the ties with France in terms of memory,” he said.