Overview
- Algeria’s National Assembly approved the measure unanimously on December 24, with lawmakers declaring France legally responsible for harms under colonial rule.
- The law catalogs alleged crimes including nuclear tests, extrajudicial killings, physical and psychological torture, and systematic resource plundering.
- It seeks restitution through the return of archives and property, transfer of detailed maps of French nuclear tests from 1960 to 1966, and repatriation of resistance fighters’ remains, and it removes any statute of limitations on colonial-era crimes.
- Domestic provisions criminalize glorifying colonialism or attacking resistance symbols, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines reaching one million dinars ($7,720).
- France called the legislation a “manifestly hostile initiative,” and historians say it has no international legal force, reinforcing already strained ties following France’s support for Morocco’s Western Sahara plan.