Algeria’s parliament on Wednesday unanimously passed a law declaring France’s 132-year colonisation of the country a crime, formally demanding an official apology and reparations in a move that has drawn sharp criticism from Paris and further strained already tense diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The legislation, adopted amid chants of “long live Algeria” from lawmakers draped in national colours, states that France bears “legal responsibility for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused”.
Although largely symbolic and not legally binding under international law, the vote carries significant political and diplomatic weight, coming at a time of deepening friction between Algiers and Paris.
Speaking ahead of the vote, Algeria’s parliamentary speaker, Brahim Boughali, said the law was intended to send “a clear message, both internally and externally, that Algeria’s national memory is neither erasable nor negotiable”.
The law lists what it describes as the “crimes of French colonisation”, including extrajudicial killings, physical and psychological torture, forced displacement, systematic plundering of resources and nuclear tests conducted during the colonial period.
It further states that “full and fair compensation for all material and moral damages caused by French colonisation is an inalienable right of the Algerian state and people”.
France’s foreign ministry swiftly condemned the move, describing it as counterproductive to efforts aimed at reviving dialogue between the two countries.
A spokesperson for the ministry said Paris was “not in the business of commenting on Algerian domestic politics” but warned that the law undermines “the desire to resume Franco-Algerian dialogue and to calm discussions on historical issues”.
The official pointed instead to initiatives by French President Emmanuel Macron, including the establishment of a joint commission of historians tasked with examining the colonial period and its legacy.
France ruled Algeria from 1830 until independence in 1962, a period that remains one of the most contentious chapters in the shared history of both nations.
Colonial rule was marked by widespread repression, mass killings, forced deportations and land seizures, culminating in the Algerian war of independence between 1954 and 1962.
Algeria maintains that the war claimed the lives of 1.5 million people, while many French historians estimate a lower death toll of around 500,000, including about 400,000 Algerians.
President Macron has previously described French colonisation in Algeria as a “crime against humanity” and acknowledged the suffering inflicted during the period, but has consistently stopped short of issuing a formal state apology or committing to reparations.
Asked last week about the proposed law, French foreign ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux declined to comment, saying France would not interfere in “political debates taking place in foreign countries”.
Legal experts say the Algerian law has no binding force beyond the country’s borders.
Hosni Kitouni, a researcher in colonial history at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, said the legislation “has no international legal scope and therefore is not binding for France”.
However, he stressed that its political and symbolic impact should not be underestimated. “Its significance lies in memory politics,” Kitouni said. “It marks a rupture in how Algeria chooses to frame its relationship with France on historical issues.”
The vote comes against the backdrop of worsening diplomatic relations between Paris and Algiers, which deteriorated sharply last year after France formally backed Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara—a disputed territory where Algeria supports the pro-independence Polisario Front.
Relations have since been further strained by a series of incidents, including the arrest and conviction of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who was later pardoned following diplomatic intervention by Germany.
Analysts say the passage of the law reflects growing frustration within Algeria over what it sees as France’s reluctance to fully reckon with its colonial past, even as Paris seeks to reset relations with its former colony.