Last week was the 60th anniversary of Algeria's independence and the departure of the French colonialists from there in 1962. What marked the anniversary was the old - new tension between the two countries, caused by a series of statements, political positions, and reactions between them.

Algeria’s position, since its independence, was clear: we are ready for normal and friendly relations with France based on mutual respect, and the first step in this direction has to be France’s recognition of its atrocities and crimes in Algeria. France must come to terms with its ugly colonial past. Recognition should be followed by an apology and compensation. 132 years of bad colonialism can’t simply be overlooked. Remembering the national “Victory Day” on March 19, 2022, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said in a message to his people, "The heinous crimes of colonialism will not be forgotten and will not be subject to a statute of limitations”.

The most important topics that require unequivocal French recognition are:

- The barbaric murders and massacres carried out by the colonial authorities against Algerians. One of the most appalling examples of this is what happened in May 1945. It began when Algerians organized large-scale and peaceful popular gatherings, marches, and demonstrations in several cities to demand independence and the release of imprisoned national leaders. National Algerian flags were raised by the crowds. The French response was cruel and brutal. Using ground, air, and naval forces, the French army started shooting live fire on demonstrators, destroying entire villages and neighborhoods. There were horrible scenes of bodies everywhere, piling up all over the streets and yards. The French authorities didn’t even care to properly bury them and threw thousands of bodies in valleys. As a result of these massacres, between 45,000 and 90,000 Algerians were killed, according to different estimates.

- The systematic looting of Algeria’s wealth during the years of occupation, which included the exploitation of gold, iron, coal mines, and other minerals to serve the French economy, and the granting of the most fertile agricultural lands to the European settlers who came from France, Italy, Spain, and Malta. In February 2021, a conference was held at the Emir Abdelkader University in Algeria during which researchers and historians talked about 110 tons of Algerian treasures of gold, silver, bullion, and other valuables, estimated to be worth today more than 80 billion dollars, which were looted by France.

- The series of nuclear tests conducted by France between 1958 and 1962 in the Reggane region in the Algerian desert in the south of the country. To this day, Algeria is still suffering from the effects of nuclear radiation. High rates of birth defects for newborns, cancer, skin, and other diseases are reported in that region. As per several reliable sources, France carried out at least 17 nuclear explosions in Algeria.

- Fighting Algerian culture and Arabic language, manipulating the components of the Algerian nation, and creating national strife. For example, the Jewish community was separated from the rest of the Algerian people by granting Jews only French citizenship and excluding Muslims. To this day, France still sponsors unpatriotic and extremist Amazigh movements, hostile to the Algerian state. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune spoke openly about one of France’s crimes in 1832 when it decided to turn the Great Mosque in Catchaoua in Algiers into a cathedral. Four thousand Algerians gathered inside the mosque to defend it and were all killed by France according to Tebboune. The French soldiers then burned the scripts of the Holy Qur’an and eventually turned the mosque into “Saint Philip Church”!

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There are three more pending files related to the colonial era:

- The Algerian National Archive, which includes millions of documents, records, and maps. France refuses to return it.

- Retrieval of the skulls of the leaders of the Algerian revolution, which are kept in the Museum of Mankind in Paris.

- The missing persons. There are about 2200 Algerians, mainly fighters and revolutionary leaders, who were abducted and killed by French colonial authorities but are neither recorded nor accounted for. 

On the French side, the spirit of colonial arrogance is still present. France refuses to recognize its crimes and colonial history in Algeria. Unlike Germany, who bravely confronted its Nazi history, apologized for it, and reconciled with its enemies and victims by paying compensations, France adamantly claims that the colonial era in Algeria is history, it’s over, and there is nothing to regret about it!

In fact, the French Parliament (the National Assembly) in 2005 adopted a law for “glorifying the colonial past of France," and it was only for President Chirac’s objection to signing it (due to economic and political calculations) that it wasn’t published in the Official Gazette to become effective! When former French President Nicola Sarkozy visited Algeria in 2007, the press asked him about the reason for France's refusal to apologize to Algeria for the atrocities it had committed during more than 130 years of colonialism, despite his desire to sign a "friendship treaty" with Algeria. He replied, "Dark pages, pains, and injustices were many during the 132 years that France spent in Algeria. I am with recognition of the facts, not with repentance. Repentance is a religious concept, and it has no place in relations between countries. I didn't come here to hurt the feelings of anybody, nor to ask for forgiveness. History is part of the past. Now, let's build the future”. That means Sarkozy was saying to the Algerians: no apology, no remorse, and let’s forget the past! 

The current French President, Macron, made a symbolic gesture to Algeria in 2020, albeit after four years of procrastination, when he allowed the return of the remains and skulls of 24 Algerians, out of the more than 500, killed by France and whose remains were kept there (so that their graves would not be a symbol of resistance in Algeria). Macron also admitted that French officers tortured and killed Algerian lawyer Ali Boumenjel in 1957. He even condemned the "unjustified crimes" during the 1961 campaign against Algerian pro-independence demonstrators in Paris (Macron talked only about events that took place on French soil).

But that positive gesture was quickly erased and reversed by Macron himself the following year, 2021, when he took two very bad positions toward Algeria! The first was when he made his infamous statement that "there was no Algerian nation before French colonialism"! He added, accusing post-independence Algeria, "It was this regime that rewrote the French colonial history of the country with motivation stemming from hatred for France." The second was his public honoring of the “Harakis” and his official apology for France’s mistreatment of them. He even went on and granted some of their heirs the Order of Merit and the Legion d’Honneur, the top honor of the French state! The "Harakis" were actually the Algerian traitors who helped the occupier and fought alongside the French army and participated in the crimes against their own people. When the French finally withdrew from Algeria in 1962, 60 thousand Harakis left with them. That is, Macron, instead of apologizing to the Algerian nation for France's crimes against it, was actually denying its existence and then honoring the murderers who participated in those crimes! 

That said, relations between Algeria and France will not become really normal nor healthy as long as France insists on rejecting the Algerian legitimate demands and clings to its old colonial arrogance. The Algerian state, especially in recent years, is more insistent than ever before on its historical rights vis-a-vis France, and won’t compromise on them.