Algeria can sue France for colonization crimes

French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s remarks about the colonization past of his country have become like a snow ball getting bigger and bigger.

French newspaper Le Monde Sunday talked about accords signed between Algiers and Paris. It started by evoking the 1962 Evian Accords. They came up with a general amnesty referendum. The law drops judicial prosecution against suspects from the two countries involved in criminal cases.

The newspaper also talked about other agreements including the 1968 accord which was revised by the Sarkozy administration. 

Yet, lawyer Fatma Zohra Benbraham believes that the 1998 Roma Treaty allows Algerians to sue their colonizer. According to laws, war crimes can never been dropped by time.

The lawyer told Echorouk crimes perpetrated by Nazis against Jews and French were the same committed by the colonization army in Algeria.

“If Nazis perpetrated a holocaust against Europeans, the French army burnt Algerians in caves and eliminated villages. It also used Algerian civilians in its nuclear explosions in Algeria’s desert. Those crimes are worse than Adolf Hitler’s,” she said.

She believes that the Algerian State should take an initiative to promulgate a law and criminalize colonization practices.