Algeria's parliament unanimously approved on Wednesday a law declaring France's colonisation of the country a crime, and demanding an apology and reparations.

Standing in the chamber, lawmakers wearing scarves in the colours of the national flag chanted "long live Algeria" as they applauded the passage of the bill, which states that France holds "legal responsibility for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused."

Parliament Speaker Brahim Boughali told the APS state news agency before the vote that it would send "a clear message, both internally and externally, that Algeria's national memory is neither erasable nor negotiable."

The legislation lists the "crimes of French colonisation", including nuclear tests, extrajudicial killings, "physical and psychological torture", and the "systematic plundering of resources."

Algeria demands damages

It states that "full and fair compensation for all material and moral damages caused by French colonisation is an inalienable right of the Algerian state and people."

France's rule over Algeria from 1830 until 1962 remains a sore spot in relations between the two countries.

The period was marked by mass killings and large-scale deportations, all the way up to the war of independence from 1954-1962.

Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians put the death toll at 500,000 in total, 400,000 of them Algerian.

French President Emmanuel Macron has previously acknowledged the colonisation of Algeria as a "crime against humanity", but has stopped short of offering an apology.