Was Colonialism a Crime? Algerian Parliament Criminalizes 130 Years of French Rule
By JUAN COLE
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Algerian newspaper al-Masa’ reports that on December 24, the Algerian parliament passed a law recognizing French colonialism in that country, 1830-1962, as having been a crime that involved mass killing, rape, displacement of populations, usurpation of land, and marginalization of people. The law also makes claims on France for reparations.
The great Algerian historian Mahfoud Bennoune had made the case for the economic benefits to France of exploitation of Algerian natural resources (metals, oil), expansion of French vineyards on expropriated Algerian land, trade monopolies and the creation of Algeria as a captive market for French goods.
He wrote not only of countless massacres by French commanders of local populations but also of a vast transfer of landed wealth: “Using innumerable arbitrary measures — sequestration, confiscation, expropriation, cantonment . . . an increasing number of hectares were accumulated for the purposes of colonization . . . The subsequent booty was distributed among the colons [French colonizers]. By 1954, these 3,028,000 expropriated hectares [~116,000 sq. mi.] consisted of 2,828,000 hectares of plowland and 210,000 hectares of forest, all owned privately by the French colons. The colonial state still possessed 7,200,000 hectares, including forest, unproductive land, and pastureland.” As for the land the Algerians were crowded onto, ” two thirds of the land assigned to the peasants was minimal pasture and unproductive plots.”
Ibrahim Boughali, the speaker of the Algerian parliament, underlined that the objective of this law is not to deploy history for the purposes of revenge, but to restate the historical truth and preserve the national memory from all efforts to erase it or falsify it. At the same time, the law emphasized the necessity for the Occupying state to accept responsibility for the “systematic crimes committed against persons, land and Algerian identity.”
Link : https://www.juancole.com/2025/12/colonialism-parliament-criminalizes.html
