France’s foreign ministry has denounced Algeria’s new law branding French colonization a “state crime” as a “manifestly hostile initiative”, warning it undermines efforts to rebuild dialogue and approach sensitive memory issues calmly.
The vote in Algiers was celebrated by lawmakers standing, draped in national colors and chanting “Vive l’Algérie!” It comes amid worsening bilateral ties and is poised to aggravate a crisis already years in the making.
That crisis has intensified since France publicly backed Morocco’s territorial integrity and autonomy plan for the Sahara in July 2024, a watershed decision that Paris framed as the only viable basis for a just and lasting UN aligned solution.
Algiers responded by escalating tensions, recalling its ambassador, hardening rhetoric, and narrowing diplomatic channels. In retaliation against Paris, France went as far as arresting 80-year old French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who was released few weeks ago following German mediation. It doubled down with the arrest of French sports journalist Christophe Gleize for his reporting in the restive Kabylie region. France and international rights watchdog, including RSF, demanded the release of Gleize.
In this context of simmering tension, the new Algerian legislation, approved unanimously by Algeria’s lower house, assigns France “legal responsibility” for colonial era “tragedies,” catalogues an imprescriptible list of crimes, from nuclear tests to extrajudicial killings, systematic torture and resource plunder.
It also asserts an “inalienable right” to full material and moral reparations for Algerians.
The vote also coincided with a separate amendment to Algeria’s nationality code enabling the exceptional deprivation of nationality for dual citizens committing what the military regime in Algiers considers as grave offences abroad against Algeria’s security and interests.
The new law affirms that Algeria’s rulers are determined to keep the country anchored in the 1960s, clinging to the mythology of the liberation struggle as if time had stood still. In a region racing toward modernization and global integration, Algiers remains fixated on colonial grievances, an obsession that serves as a political crutch for an aging military elite desperate to preserve its grip on power.
