Algerian Senate approves law on colonialism, with reservations

The Algerian Senate has approved a new law criminalizing French colonialism, but rejected the most controversial parts on possible reparations and demanding official excuses from France, reports RFI on 24th January. The senators based their decision on the fact that the law didn’t correspond to some of President Abdelmajid Tebboune’s declarations, in which he stated that Algeria was asking for recognition of colonial crimes, and not for financial reparations.

The draft law had been approved unanimously by the Algerian Parliament in December 2025, and it will now be examined by a commission made of both senators and parliament members, with the aim to rewrite the 2 rejected sections and address the issues raised, and to propose a new draft law.

The law has been the subject of debate for many years: a draft law was originally proposed by parliament members in 2010, before being abandoned, allegedly to protect diplomatic relations between France and Algeria. It was then reintroduced in 2025, as Algeria was commemorating the devastating impact of France nuclear trials in the Algerian desert in 1960, which still affects local communities with an abnormal number of cancers and birth defects.

The law describes the crimes committed by France in Algeria during the colonial era (from 1830 to 1962), including torture, killings, theft of resources and nuclear testing. The project has been described as a critical moment of Algerian history by Speaker Ibrahim Moughal, and an act of sovereignty by which Algeria seeks to re-affirm the rights of its citizens, past and present.

France has rejected the law, which was voted in the context of deep tensions between both countries. After its approval by the Algerian Parliament, the French Foreign Ministry had denounced a “hostile initiative”, going against the efforts made by France to restart dialogue. The French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez has expressed his desire to visit Algeria and to repair the relationship between the two countries, brought closer by the over 2 million of Algerian citizens and their descendants living in France.

RFI, Le Monde, Maghrebi.org