(AFP) – Dec 4, 2007

TIPAZA, Algeria (AFP) — President Nicolas Sarkozy's comments denouncing colonialism as unjust still do not go far enough, Algeria's interior minister said Tuesday on day two of a state visit by the French leader.

"This marks a progress," Yazid Zerhouni, said in the first official reaction to Sarkozy's remarks made late Monday. "It is a step in the right direction, but we still say it is not enough when his remarks are taken in context."

Speaking in the Algerian capital late Monday, Sarkozy said that "the colonial system was profoundly unjust, contrary to the three founding words of our Republic: freedom, equality, brotherhood."

But he steered clear of bending to Algerian demands to say sorry for atrocities allegedly committed by French troops and settlers during the north African country's bitter and bloody 1954-1962 war of independence.

Sarkozy said that "terrible crimes" were committed on both sides and that all of the war's victims should be honoured.

"I do not know whether an apology is necessary, but it would always be useful," Zerhouni told reporters ahead of a visit by Sarkozy to the World Heritage archaeological site of Tipaza, 70 kilometres (40 miles) west of Algiers.

He said however that the absence of an apology "will not prevent there being a new vision of our relations. In both France and Algeria, we are condemned to believe that friendship is possible."

France ruled Algeria, the second biggest country in Africa, from 1830 to 1962, turning the country into one of its empire's proudest possessions and populating it with tens of thousands of settlers.

Paris and its former colony have maintained an uneasy relationship since 1962 and 45 years later plans for a friendship treaty remain on ice over France's refusal to apologise for past events.

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