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Algeria’s parliament has unanimously passed a law declaring France’s colonisation of the North African state a crime, and demanding an apology and reparations.

The law also criminalises the glorification of colonialism, state-run TV reports.

The vote is the latest sign of increasingly strained diplomatic relations between the two countries, with some observers saying they are at their lowest since Algeria gained independence 63 years ago.

France’s colonialisation of Algeria between 1830 and 1962 was marked by mass killings, large-scale deportations and ended in a bloody war of independence. Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians put the death toll much lower.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has previously acknowledged the colonisation of Algeria was a “crime against humanity” but has not offered an apology.

Lawmakers wore scarves in the colours of the national flag and chanted “long live Algeria” as they applauded the bill’s passage through parliament, AFP news agency reports.

It says the legislation states that France has “legal responsibility” for the “tragedies it caused”, and “full and fair” compensation was an “inalienable right of the Algerian state and people”.

France has not yet commented on the vote.

It comes at a time of growing pressure on Western powers to offer reparations for slavery and colonialism, and to return looted artefacts still kept in their museums.

Algerian lawmakers have been demanding that France return a 16th Century bronze canon, known as Baba Merzoug, meaning “Blessed Father”, that was regarded as the protector of Algiers, now Algeria’s capital.

French forces captured the city in 1830, on their third attempt, and removed the cannon – which is now in the port city of Brest in north-western France.

In 2020, France returned the remains of 24 Algerian fighters who were killed resisting French colonial forces in the 19th Century.

Last month, Algeria hosted a conference of African states to push for justice and reparations.

Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf said that a legal framework would ensure that restitution was neither regarded as “a gift nor a favour”.

Diplomatic relations between between Algeria and France soured last year, when Macron announced France was recognising Moroccan sovereignty of Western Sahara and backed a plan for limited autonomy for the disputed territory.

Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front in Western Sahara and is seen as its main ally.

French-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal was then arrested at Algiers airport in and jailed for five years, before being pardoned by Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune last month.

Prosecutors said he had undermined national security for making remarks that questioned Algeria’s borders.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a March presidential memorandum to revoke the security clearance of prominent Washington attorney Mark Zaid, ruling that the order — which also targeted 14 other individuals — could not be applied to him.

The decision marked the administration’s second legal setback on Tuesday, after the Supreme Court declined to allow Trump to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area, capping a first year in office in which President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose a sweeping agenda and pursue retribution against political adversaries have been repeatedly slowed by the courts.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington granted Zaid’s request for a preliminary injunction, after he sued the Trump administration in May over the revocation of his security clearance. Zaid’s request called it an act of “improper political retribution” that jeopardized his ability to continue representing clients in sensitive national security cases.

The March presidential memorandum singled out Zaid and 14 other individuals who the White House asserted were unsuitable to retain their clearances because it was “no longer in the national interest.” The list included targets of Trump’s fury from both the political and legal spheres, including former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former President Joe Biden and members of his family.

The action was part of a much broader retribution campaign that Trump has waged since returning to the White House, including directing specific Justice Department investigations against perceived adversaries and issuing sweeping executive orders targeting law firms over legal work he does not like.

In August, the Trump administration said it was revoking the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials. Ordering the revocation of clearances has been a favored retributive tactic that Trump has wielded — or at least tried to — against high-profile political figures, lawyers and intelligence officials in his second term.

Zaid said in his lawsuit that he has represented clients across the political spectrum over nearly 35 years, including government officials, law enforcement and military officials and whistleblowers. In 2019, he represented an intelligence community whistleblower whose account of a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy helped set the stage for the first of two impeachment cases against Trump in his first term.

“This court joins the several others in this district that have enjoined the government from using the summary revocation of security clearances to penalize lawyers for representing people adverse to it,” Ali wrote in his order.

Ali emphasized that his order does not prevent the government from revoking or suspending Zaid’s clearance for reasons independent of the presidential memorandum and through normal agency processes. The preliminary injunction does not go into effect until January 13.

Zaid said in a statement, “This is not just a victory for me, it’s an indictment of the Trump administration’s attempts to intimidate and silence the legal community, especially lawyers who represent people who dare to question or hold this government accountable.”

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Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Footage captures the moment rescuers discover a survivor in the wreckage of a plane crash that killed at least 5 people, with one person still missing. Two people were rescued and taken to an area hospital.

Sky Decker, a local yacht captain, said he took two police officers to the site of the nearly submerged plane, before jumping in and finding an injured woman trapped.

The crash occurred near Galveston, Texas. The aircraft was on a medical transport mission for Michou y Mau Foundation, which provides care to Mexican children with severe burns. The cause of the crash has not yet been determined.