According to the People’s National Assembly, Algerian lawmakers are beginning to debate a draft law that would criminalize France’s occupation of the North African nation during a tense tidal period.
More than 130 years of French colonial rule in Algeria saw the onset of torture, forced disappearances, massacres, economic exploitation, and marginalization of the indigenous Muslim population.
Up to 1.5 million people are thought to have been killed, thousands of people have disappeared, and millions have been displaced since Algeria’s independence from France in 1962.
What are our current knowledge of the proposed legislation?
What is known about the bill, exactly?
The lower house of parliament, the People’s National Assembly, on Saturday, introduced the draft law, which seeks to criminalize French colonial rule in Algeria between 1830 and 1962.
According to reports, the bill will be subject to a vote on Wednesday.
The draft, which includes five chapters of 27 articles and five chapters, is based on “the principles of international law that affirm peoples’ right to legal redress” and “the achievement of historical justice,” according to a public broadcaster called AL24 News.
According to the report, the channel’s report states that it aims to “establish responsibility, secure recognition, and an apology for crimes of colonialism as a foundation for reconciliation with history and the protection of national memory.”
What was said by the speaker?
Speaker Ibrahim Boughali described the bill as a “defining milestone in the course of modern Algeria” when he presented it.
According to the Anadolu news agency, it is a supreme act of sovereignty, a clear moral stance, and an unambiguous political message that shows Algeria’s commitment to its inalienable rights and its loyalty to its people, according to Boughali.
He argued that the country’s colonization by France “did not only involve the plundering of wealth.”
He said that it also included policies of systematic starvation, starvation, and exclusion intended to sever Algerian people’s ties to their “roots,” as well.
What has France said in response?
The French government has yet to respond to the discussion.
However, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, has previously stated that he won’t begrudge the country for colonization.
He stated to Le Point magazine in 2023 that he wanted to work with Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to find a resolution.
He claimed in the interview, “It’s not my responsibility to ask for forgiveness,” according to the AFP news agency.
Macron said, “We apologise and each go our own way,” which would be the worst. “A settling of all accounts” doesn’t mean working on memory and history.
What are our current knowledges about Algeria’s colonial history in France?
Algeria was under French rule from 1830 until a brutal independence war that lasted from 1954 to 1962.
French forces are accused of gross human rights violations and war crimes, including systematic torture, summary executions, and forced disappearances, killing 1.5 million Algerians during the conflict. Additionally, thousands of villages were destroyed by the French colonial forces, forcing some two million Algerians to flee.
France acknowledged in 2018 that the war had resulted in widespread torture.
How do France and Algerian relations stand?
Algeria and France maintain close ties through immigration, particularly as a result of the parliamentary debate.
Since Paris recognized Morocco’s plan for resolving the Western Sahara conflict in July 2024, there have been high tense levels for months. Since 1975, when Spain, the colonial power, left the region, the Western Sahara was the site of an armed rebellion.
Algeria backs the Polisario Front, which rejects Morocco’s proposal for autonomy, and supports the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination in Western Sahara.
After an Algerian diplomat was detained in Paris along with two other Algerian nationals in April, the tensions reached a peak. Just one week after Macron and Tebboune pledged to restart dialogue, the diplomatic crisis emerged.
Source: Aljazeera
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