Algeria criminalises French colonialism, demands reparation
Macron has previously acknowledged the colonisation of Algeria as a "crime against humanity" but has stopped short of offering an apology.
Algeria's parliament has unanimously approved a law declaring France's colonisation of the country a crime and demanding an apology and reparations.
Standing in the chamber, lawmakers wearing scarves in the colours of the national flag chanted "long live Algeria" as they applauded the passage of the bill on Wednesday, which states that France holds "legal responsibility for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused."
Parliament speaker Brahim Boughali told the APS state news agency before the vote that it would send "a clear message, both internally and externally, that Algeria's national memory is neither erasable nor negotiable".
The legislation lists the "crimes of French colonisation", including nuclear tests, extrajudicial killings, "physical and psychological torture", and the "systematic plundering of resources".
It 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.”
Crime against humanity
France's rule over Algeria from 1830 until 1962 remains a sore spot in relations between the two countries.
The period was marked by mass killings and large-scale deportations, all the way up to the bloody war of independence from 1954 to 1962.
Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians put the death toll lower at 500,000 in total, 400,000 of them Algerian.
French President Emmanuel Macron has previously acknowledged the colonisation of Algeria as a "crime against humanity" but has stopped short of offering an apology.
Asked last week about the vote, French foreign ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux said he would not comment on "political debates taking place in foreign countries.”