\n Algeria is waiting for an apology for France's colonial occupation of the North African country, the president said, expressing hope that Emmanuel Macron would build on recent conciliatory overtures.\n<\/p>\n
\n A global reexamination of the legacy of colonialism has been unleashed by the May killing of unarmed African American George Floyd by a white police officer, which sparked mass protests around the world.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have already had half-apologies. The next step is needed... we await it,\" President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said Saturday in an interview with news channel France 24.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I believe that with President Macron, we can go further in the appeasement process... he is a very honest man, who wants to improve the situation.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n France's 132 years of colonial rule in Algeria, and the brutal eight-year war that ended it, have left a legacy of often prickly relations between the two countries.\n<\/p>\n
\n In what has been seen as a thaw in ties, Algeria on Friday received the skulls of 24 resistance fighters decapitated during the colonial period.\n<\/p>\n
\n The skulls will be laid to rest in the martyrs' section of the capital's El Alia cemetery on Sunday -- the 58th anniversary of Algeria's independence -- according to media reports.\n<\/p>\n
\n Tebboune said an apology from France would \"make it possible to cool tensions and create a calmer atmosphere for economic and cultural relations\", especially for the more than six million Algerians who live in France.\n<\/p>\n
\n In December 2019, Macron said that \"colonialism was a grave mistake\" and called for turning the page on the past.\n<\/p>\n
\n During his presidential election campaign, he had created a storm by calling France's colonisation of Algeria a \"crime against humanity\".\n<\/p>\n
\n UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has urged countries to make amends for \"centuries of violence and discrimination\".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Algeria is waiting for an apology for France's colonial occupation of the North African country, the president said, expressing hope that Emmanuel Macron would build on recent conciliatory overtures. A global reexamination of the legacy of colonialism has been unleashed by the May killing of unarmed African American George Floyd by a white police officer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-44799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n