French President Emmanuel Macron has ruled out issuing an official apology for abuses in Algeria, his office said Wednesday, ahead of a major report on how France is facing up to its colonial past in the country. There will be "no repentance nor apologies" for the occupation of Algeria or the bloody eight-year war that ended French rule, Macron's office said, adding that the French leader would instead take part in "symbolic acts" aimed at promoting reconciliation.
The atrocities committed by both sides during the 1954-1962 Algerian war of independence continue to strain relations between the two countries six decades later. Macron, the first president born after the colonial period, has gone further than any of his predecessors in recognising French crimes in Algeria. Later Wednesday, a historian commissioned by the president with assessing "the progress made by France on the memory of the colonisation of Algeria and the Algerian war," will submit his findings.
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