It is said, “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” and so it is with France and Algeria.

Relations between France and Algeria have recently deteriorated due to a combination of diplomatic disputes, immigration policies, and historical grievances.

France’s 132-year rule of Algeria, ending in 1962 after an eight-year war of independence, still shapes relations between Paris and Algiers. Algeria has long sought apology for colonial-era wrongs and reparations for nuclear weapons tests conducted in the Sahara Desert, while France has been reluctant to fully apologize to avoid antagonizing the descendants of the colonists (and also probably to avoid financial liability).

Algeria was not a colony or a protectorate, but a part of Metropolitan France in the Third through Fifth Republics. France had to retain Algeria at all costs as it had just suffered defeat in French Indochina in 1954, and needed the land as a gateway to France’s possessions in Africa, and for the natural resources. Today, the relations between the two countries are strained by many factors: