"The Algerian government should sue France in international courts for its crimes against humanity," Kassal said.

ALGIERS, December 15, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Algeria's Islamic-leaning lawmakers have put together a new draft bill criminalizing France's colonial era in the Arab country and calling on their government to press for Paris to be tried for its "crimes against humanity".

"The Algerian government should sue France in international courts for its crimes against humanity," Abdul Salam Kassal, a member of the National Reform Movement (Islah), told IslamOnline.net Wednesday, December 14.

Algerian deputies of the National Reform Movement presented the new draft bill in parliament Monday and it is expected to be referred later to the Algerian government for ratification.

The draft bill, a copy of which was seen by IOL, stipulates that "the Algerian state has a responsibility to bring to justice those who have committed crimes against humanity."

"These crimes never fall with the passage of time, whether committed by settlers, collaborators or French nationals who settled in Algeria during the French colonial era and left the country after independence," it said.

The motion comes in response to a French law, ratified early this year, glorifying the French colonial history.

Passed through the National Assembly in February, the French law is aimed at improving living conditions for French people repatriated from Algeria at the end of the country's independence war more than 40 years ago.

The French controversial legislation states that "school programs recognize in particular the positive role of France's presence overseas, notably in north Africa, and give due prominence to the history and sacrifices of French army fighters from these territories".

Though it passed almost unnoticed through parliament, the law has since been loudly denounced by rights groups, historians and citizens of France's overseas territories who say it is a blatant attempt to whitewash the colonial past.

The legislation has become a particularly sensitive lightening rod since last month's riots in France.

The unrest stirred painful debate about France's failure to integrate immigrants -- many of whom come from former French colonies.

The Algerian draft bill further urges France to apologize for “its crimes committed during the French colonial era” (1830-1962).

“The French authorities are morally obliged to acknowledge its colonial past in Algeria as well as all negative aspects cited in confessions of French civil and military figures and eyewitnesses,” the law said.

“Three million Algerians were killed during the 123-year-old French occupation,” Kassal said.

“However, France has enacted a law that is meant to humiliate the Algerian people,” he added.

The lawmaker maintained that his fellow MPs are planning a meeting with victims of the French colonialism to urge them to sue the European country for its practices and seek financial damages.

France and Algeria are intimately linked by a 130-year colonial history, by the memories of hundreds of thousands of French citizens who fled Algeria at its independence, and by the living experience of the two million people of Algerian nationality or origin who now live in France.

The Algerian draft law also urges Algerian authorities to endorse the right of sons of those forced to leave Algeria under the French occupation to have the Algerian nationality. It also calls for teaching Islam and Arabic to them where they live.

France ruled over more than one-third of Africa at the height of its colonial empire and still has military bases in several countries and ranks as a major investor in states including Senegal and Ivory Coast.