By Bongiwe Dlamini

MBABANE:Members of Parliament (MPs) in Algeria have begun debating a draft law that would criminalise France’s colonisation of the North African country amid a period of tense ties between the two countries, according to the People’s National Assembly, Aljazeera reported.

It has been reported that, the French colonial rule in Algeria lasted for more than 130 years, which was marked by torture, enforced disappearances, massacres, economic exploitation and marginalisation of the Indigenous Muslim population.

“Algeria gained independence from France in 1962, but it came at a high human cost: up to 1.5 million people are believed to have been killed, thousands disappeared and millions displaced,” reads the Aljazeera report in part.