ALGIERS, Algeria — Event date: 2025-12-24. Algeria’s parliament voted to declare France’s colonization of the country a crime, approving a law that also seeks restitution for property taken during the 130-year colonial period.
The vote was overwhelmingly symbolic and politically charged. Lawmakers adopted the measure in a solemn ceremony that underscored how central memory of colonial rule remains in Algerian public life. According to AP, 340 of 407 members of the National Assembly voted to approve the law late Wednesday.
The law covers the period from the French landing at Sidi Ferruch in 1830 to Algeria’s independence on July 5, 1962. It goes beyond a moral statement. It calls for the return of Algerian archives and property moved to France during colonial rule, the transfer of maps linked to French nuclear tests in Algeria from 1960 to 1966, and the repatriation of the remains of some resistance fighters taken to France.
The legislation also contains punitive language aimed at defending the historical narrative it sets out. It creates prison sentences for Algerians who celebrate French colonialism, attack symbols of the resistance or make remarks with colonial connotations. By doing so, it turns memory politics into criminal law and gives the state a stronger hand in policing public expression about the colonial era.
France reacted sharply, calling the move a hostile act. Paris said the law threatened efforts to improve bilateral relations, even though the two countries remain tightly linked through culture, migration and trade. The dispute therefore lands at the intersection of history and diplomacy: an argument over the past that could affect present-day cooperation.
The AP report places the law in the larger context of African calls for recognition and reparations for colonial-era crimes. It also points to the brutal nature of French rule in Algeria, where nearly a million European settlers held political and economic privileges and where the war of independence left deep scars through torture, disappearances and village destruction.
The symbolism at the National Assembly made clear that the vote was about national identity as much as legal language. Speaker Mohamed Boughali called it a historic day, while lawmakers recited lines from the national anthem. Former lawmaker Mohamed Arezki Ferrad, who helped initiate the bill, said the measure marked the culmination of a long campaign.
France is unlikely to accept the demands, but Algeria has now put its case into law. That makes the issue harder to dismiss as rhetoric alone and turns a long-standing historical grievance into an official state position with potential diplomatic consequences.
