Algeria needs an apology and reparations from France – not a history lesson | Nabila Ramdani

Emmanuel Macron has set a historian to investigate colonial brutality - but yet more evidence is no substitute for action

Clarifying the past is a notoriously difficult task at the best of times, but exceptionally so in relation to the intensely bloody history of Algeria.

France, its former coloniser, has a long record of covering up the atrocities it committed, so the facts are frequently disputed. This has prolonged anger and resentment among the victims of an imperial adventure that continues to divide the two nations.