23-06-2025
Hearings, Field Visits to Draft a Proposal to Criminalise Colonialism
The parliamentary commission at the National People's Assembly, tasked with preparing a draft criminalising French colonialism, continues its series of hearings with historians and researchers.
This is part of its work on the national memory issue and the completion of the legislative process aimed at holding France accountable for colonial crimes, based on a comprehensive legal and political approach, as the commission seeks to achieve.
According to what Echorouk learned, the commission's work includes scheduling field visits to several wilayas and regions that witnessed serious violations during the French occupation. This will be done to collect field testimonies and official data documenting these crimes. The goal is to develop a legal framework that reflects a renewed societal and political demand to uncover the truth and reject the whitewashing of the colonial past, according to statements made by commission members.
On Monday, the commission discussed with history expert Mohamed Doumir in a session devoted to monitoring legal and political interpretations that support the legislative endeavours of this proposal. Meetings will continue in the coming days with specialists and academics from various relevant disciplines, as well as scheduling field visits to several wilayas and organising an official meeting with the Algerian Commission for History and Memory.
Over the past weeks, the commission intensified listening sessions that targeted previous initiatives in the field of memory documentation and anti -colonialism, and also looked at the experiences of many countries that have fought similar colonial stages, to benefit from their legal approaches and symbolic steps in imposing recognition, and extracting historical and material compensation.
The commission was based, in preparing the law proposal, on archival documents, scientific research, video testimonies and official data that document the various forms of crimes committed by French colonialism in Algeria, including mass massacres, impoverishment, displacement and cultural eradication that targeted the Algerian people for decades.
The file also includes, according to parliamentary sources, the crimes related to the nuclear bombings in the Algerian sahara and other issues whose repercussions still exist to this day, in light of an international legal consensus that gives colonial peoples the right to demand recognition and historical responsibility, especially when the effects of aggression are extended throughout time and place.
Through these steps, the Parliamentary Commission seeks to overcome the symbolic nature of the file by building a clear legal path that holds France directly a historical responsibility for its severe violations against the Algerian people, whether through genocide or systematic colonial policies that targeted national identity and economic capabilities.
Previously, the commission had supervised the organisation of listening sessions for specialists and owners of previous initiatives in the field, and examples of countries that have had similar colonial experiences were found to benefit from their legal mechanisms and symbolic steps in achieving recognition and compensation.
This was not yet clear whether the draft would be completed and officially deposited with the Office of the National People's Assembly before the conclusion of the fourth parliamentary session, or if the commission would be postponed until the opening of the next session, after completing the programmed listening sessions and field visits.
