Hollande faces France’s bitter colonial past in Algeria

PARIS - France 24

France's President Francois Hollande and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (R) wave to the crowd from their car as they arrive in downtown Algiers December 19, 2012. REUTERS photo

It's a prickly question Algeria has been dealing with for a decade: Is France ready to apologise for its colonial past? And as President François Hollande begins an official visit to the North African country on Wednesday, that question is more pressing than ever.

The two countries have never fully reconciled since the bloody 1954-1962 war, which ended with Algeria’s liberation and whose scars are akin to those left on a generation of Americans and Vietnamese who fought in and endured the consequences of the Vietnam War.

Algerian authorities have claimed as many as 1.5 million people died during the eight-year conflict, while French estimates set a much lower figure of 350,000. Both Algerian and French civilians were often the target of attacks, while hundreds of thousands on both sides were uprooted because of the war.


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