Hommam Al Nassim 
Algeria presented a list of properties held by France since the colonial era, demanding their restoration within the framework of the work of a joint committee to look into that historical period.
The joint committee’s statement, issued on Monday, stated that the Algerian committee “presented an open list of historical Algerian properties with symbolic connotations, preserved in various French institutions and proposed for retrieval and delivery in a symbolic capacity to Algeria.”
The statement continued: “The Algerian committee called on its French counterpart to raise its concerns about the recovery of cultural and archival property and others on the attached list to French President Emmanuel Macron.”
In turn, the French committee unanimously approved this request and committed “to submit it to the French President, in order to return this property to its country of origin as soon as possible.”
Since its establishment in 2022, the Joint Committee has held five meetings, the last of which was in Algeria on Wednesday and Thursday, with the participation of ten historians, five from each side, with the aim of examining the period of French colonization of Algeria from 1830 until the end of the War of Independence in 1962.
The committee had agreed at its previous meeting in Paris in February to recover property symbolizing the state sovereignty of Prince Abdelkader bin Mohieddine, the hero of the Algerian resistance against French colonialism.
It is noteworthy that France handed over to Algeria in 2020 the remains of 24 resistance fighters who were killed at the beginning of colonialism, but Algeria is still demanding the return of “skulls found in museums” for reburial.
The next meeting of the joint committee is expected to be held in France at the beginning of July, according to the statement.
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