Within the halls of the French Senate, courageous voices are finally emerging from the very heart of the French institution, carrying with them troubling questions that reopen wounds yet to heal. Senator Mathilde Olivier, with her historical and moral sensibility, has not only shed light on the outstanding issues between Algeria and France but has also drawn a clear roadmap for any genuine reconciliation that goes beyond the diplomacy of pleasantries and denial.
## **Two Inescapable Conditions: Apology and Reparation**
Olivier puts her finger on the deep wound: **Colonial Memory**. She asserts that any serious effort to restore relations must pass through the gate of official recognition of colonial crimes, paired with a formal apology worthy of the magnitude of what occurred. But she does not stop at rhetoric; she pushes the issue into a more decisive arena: **opening a serious debate on reparations**. It is a moral and political prerequisite, as she describes it, for building a balanced relationship that sheds the burden and burdens of the past.
## **Looted Cultural Property: Returning Memory to Its Homeland**
In a crucial point, the senator echoes Algeria's historical demand for the restitution of **looted cultural property**. She goes even further by affirming the need to manage this file through expert committees to include all acts of plunder, even those predating 1815. It is a call to restore not only material property but also the memory of a people whose history was stolen and trapped in the narrative of the colonizer.
## **The French Community in Algeria: A Bridge or a Wall?**
Olivier sees the **French community residing in Algeria** as a human and cultural bridge capable of playing an active role in conveying Algerian aspirations for a relationship based on **mutual respect** and parity, away from the logic of guardianship. It is a progressive view that deals with the French presence as part of the present and future, provided the legacy of the past is addressed first.
## **Parliament and Diplomacy: The Channel for Dialogue in an Era of Rift**
The senator emphasizes the importance of **parliamentary diplomacy** as a fundamental channel for maintaining dialogue even in the darkest periods of official tension, criticizing policies of rupture and escalation that only deepen disagreements. She blames the French far-right, particularly former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, for the decline in dialogue due to his hardline rhetoric and his instrumentalization of the colonial file for electoral purposes.
## **Archives and Historians: The Keys to Truth**
Olivier sets a fundamental scientific condition for reconciliation: **the involvement of historians and the full opening of French archives**. Truth is not built on political selectivity but on documented facts. She calls for joint work with Algeria away from short-term political calculations, hinting at the necessity of overcoming the colonial perspective that still colors some French readings of history.
## ** Awaiting Political Will**
Between the French ambassador to Algeria's admission of the collapse in relations and his insistence on making demands, the ball remains in France's court. Algeria awaits tangible steps to correct mistakes. The question powerfully raised by Olivier's statements is: Does France possess the sufficient political and moral will to walk this thorny path? Or will the files of memory remain hostage to electoral conflicts and historical denial?
In the end, genuine reconciliation between peoples is not merely a matter of signatures on diplomatic documents; it is a shared journey toward truth and justice. The steps outlined by Senator Olivier may be the beginning of the path, but they require a collective will from the French side to turn words into actions, and closed archives into a memory open to all.