France’s controversial legacy of colonialism has been thrown into the spotlight with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune saying his government is still awaiting an apology from Paris for the treatment of Algerians under 132 years of French occupation, culminating in a bloody eight-year war of independence that claimed some 1.5 million Algerian lives.

France is far from alone in being forced by current events to reckon with its past. The colonial histories of developed countries across much of the first world have come under scrutiny in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, for France and Algeria at least, the scars of the former’s occupation of the latter run painfully close to the surface.

According to Tebboune, an apology would help "face the problem of memory that jeopardizes many things in the relations between the two countries.” Moreover, looking to the future, it would "make it possible to cool tensions and create a calmer atmosphere for economic and cultural relations" between the two countries, particularly for the more than six million Algerians currently residing in France, he said.

However, after decades of near silence from Élysée on the subject of France’s actions during Algeria’s occupation, as well as the still painful memory of French barbarism during the war of independence, it is unclear at this late stage what an apology might do to help heal the divide that continues to separate the two states.