The colonial past weighs upon Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Algeria

Despite the signing of several commercial contracts on December 4th, the visit to Algeria paid by French president Nicolas Sarkozy was somewhat tense, due to ill feeling over France's colonial past. The editorialist Laurent Joffrin urges the president, who made no official apology, to make a gesture in order to improve Franco-Algerian relations. "Repentance ? That word has a religious dimension, is doleful even, which makes it improper. But the actual act is legitimate, necessary. A gesture, a strong declaration is essential to at last distance this colonial legacy that is still poisoning, 40 years later, relations between France and Algeria. ... The French should indeed make the first move, but the Algerians should follow suite. Otherwise the ill memory of the Franco-Algerian past will continue to damage the inevitable relations between these two shores of the Mediterranean."

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