Alwaght- Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has called France to recognize the crimes committed during its colonial era in Algeria.
He made the remarks on the eve of the celebration of the Independence Day in Algeria which was marked on July 5 to mark the end of the colonial period from 1830 to 1962 by France.
"Algeria and France have started constructing exceptional partnership that should be mutually beneficial through the recognition of the truths of history," President Bouteflika said in a message on the 55th anniversary of the Independence Day.
"My people are still demanding that their sufferings during the colonial era should be recognized by France," specified Bouteflika stated, adding "safeguarding the national remembrance is also intended for our rising generations, as it will always constitute for them a precious source of patriotism and a motive of perennial national pride."
"By remembering our tragic past due to the French invasion, we are actually exercising our duty to remember our ancestors, millions of whom fell in the field of resistance, hundreds of thousands of others were imprisoned or deported, while millions were dispossessed of their lands and possessions," he noted.
Bouteflika concluded that the celebration of the Independence Day is also "exercising a duty to remember one and a half million of our sons who scarified their lives for the recovery of the independence and national sovereignty."
Algeria is still awaiting a clear recognition by Paris of "the colonial crimes" committed in Algeria between 1830 and 1962. Former French President Francois Hollande acknowledged, during his first official visit to Algiers in December 2013, that "the colonial system was deeply unjust."
