Algeria is waiting for an apology for France’s colonial occupation of the North African country, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on Saturday last week, expressing hope that French President Emmanuel Macron would build on recent conciliatory overtures.
A global re-examination of the legacy of colonialism has been unleashed by the killing of unarmed African American George Floyd on May 25 by a white police officer, which sparked mass protests around the world.
“We have already had half-apologies. The next step is needed ... we await it,” Tebboune said in an interview with news channel France 24.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I believe that with President Macron, we can go further in the appeasement process ... he is a very honest man, who wants to improve the situation,” Tebboune added.
France’s 132 years of colonial rule in Algeria and the brutal eight-year war that ended it have left a legacy of often prickly relations between the two countries.
In what has been seen as a thaw in ties, Algeria on Friday received the skulls of 24 resistance fighters decapitated during the colonial period.
According to media reports, the skulls were laid to rest in the martyrs’ section of El Alia cemetery in Algiers yesterday — the 58th anniversary of Algeria’s independence.
An apology from France would “make it possible to cool tensions and create a calmer atmosphere for economic and cultural relations,” especially for the more than 6 million Algerians who live in France, Tebboune said.
In December last year, Macron said that “colonialism was a grave mistake” and called for turning the page on the past.
During his presidential election campaign in 2017, Macron created a storm by calling France’s colonization of Algeria a “crime against humanity.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has urged countries to make amends for “centuries of violence and discrimination.”
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