ALGERIA is set to pass a law that could lead to prosecutions over colonial crimes committed by France during  its occupation of the country between 1830 and 1962.

Legislation has been drafted by 120 parliamentarians and sent to Speaker of the Algerian People’s National Assembly Sulieiman Shanin, asking him to take legal steps to ensure it is debated and voted on.

The group approached Mr Shanin today demanding to know why the draft law on colonial crimes had not been scheduled for debate in the country’s parliament, despite it being submitted on January 28.

In 2009 a draft law that would have criminalised colonialism was never enacted, with the regime of ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika accused of deliberately sabotaging its passage.

But in December 2019 Algerian Minister of Mujahideen (war veterans) Tayeb Zitouni demanded that the files on French colonial crimes be opened.

This came as France was accused of meddling in the country’s internal affairs, amid increasing tensions following the removal of Mr Boutelflika.

In 2018 France finally admitted that it carried out systematic torture during Algeria’s independence war. President Emmanuel Macron said the nation must now confront its past with “courage and lucidity.”

The law has been drafted with the support of Algeria’s National War Veterans’ Organisation (ONM). The organisation’s secretary-general, Mohand Oulhadj, said it was a response to a French law passed in 2005 glorifying the colonial past.

The 2005 legislation, introduced to recognise the role of the harkis — Algerians who fought alongside French colonial troops in the 1954-62 war of independence – forced schools to stress “the positive role of the French presence overseas, notably in north Africa."

More than 5 million Algerians were killed during the French colonial era, including 1.5 million during the war of independence. Thousands were disappeared, with villages razed to the ground. France also used the Algerian desert as a nuclear testing ground.