Algeria welcomes French vote on 1961 colonialist 'crime'

Algiers: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has praised French lawmakers for approving a resolution condemning a deadly 1961 police crackdown on...

Algiers: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has praised French lawmakers for approving a resolution condemning a deadly 1961 police crackdown on peaceful Algerian protesters as a "positive gesture".

Speaking on national television Saturday night, Tebboune said "France's national assembly made a positive gesture by recognising the crime committed... in 1961".

"It is a positive move," in the often strained ties between the two countries, he said.

In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria, but it has refused to "apologise or repent" for the 132 years of often brutal rule that ended in 1962 after a devastating eight-year war.

On Thursday, the French parliament's lower house approved a resolution condemning as "bloody and murderous repression" the killing by police in Paris of dozens of Algerian protesters.