French President Emmanuel Macron does not intend to ask for forgiveness for the colonization of Algeria and his role in the war of independence. He said this in an interview with the French weekly Le Point.

A former French colony, Algeria gained its independence in 1962 after an eight-year war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The brutality of the war, which included the execution and torture of Algerian nationalists, had an indelible impact on French politics and society, and remains a highly sensitive topic in France.

In 2017, then-presidential candidate Macron called French colonization a crime against humanity, breaking the tradition of carefully balanced language on the subject by French politicians and leaders.

His statement created a furor in France and raised hopes in Algeria that he would bring the two countries closer to reconciliation.

Since his election, however, the French president has retracted his statements. Although he condemned the killing of dozens of Algerians by French police during a 1961 protest in Paris as inexcusable in 2021, he refrained from a state apology for France's colonial past.

Nevertheless, the president of the republic should not demand an assessment of colonialism, Macron said.