Algeria’s President demands justice over French colonial misdeeds

Algeria’s President Abdelmajdid Tebboune demanded France acknowledge the brutality at the center of its colonial legacy, in a statement issued as ceremonies were held in the capital Algiers to remember protesters who took to the streets to call for the end of French rule. 

“On this day we are remembering the massacres of May 8, 1945, committed by the colonizer with extreme brutality and cruelty, to repress a growing national activist movement that had resulted in massive demonstrations expressing the revolt of the Algerian people and its aspiration to freedom and emancipation,’’ the Algerian President said in the statement, according to the Associated Press. 

French relations with its former colony have been clouded for over 60 years by historical memory which “will remain at the center of our concerns until it enjoys an objective treatment that pays justice to historical truth,’’ Tebboune added.

While the two countries have developed close ties in economic, security and especially energy spheres, the colonial legacy remains a stumbling block, which Tebboune will reportedly raise during his trip to France later this year.