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“France is not guilty for having wanted to share her culture with the peoples of Africa, Asia, and North America.”

As France gears up for its presidential election this April, here’s a look at what the candidates have said about the country’s colonial past.

The once-expansive French empire included colonies around the world, many of which proclaimed their independence in the 1950s and 60s. France has since styled itself as post-racial, colorblind republic, but struggles to address its colonial past.

Afp / AFP / Getty Images

Emmanuel Macron, a former member of President François Hollande’s cabinet now running as an independent: “There have been elements of civilization as well as of barbarism.”

REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina

“Colonization is part of French history,” Macron said on a visit to the former French colony of Algeria this week. “It is part of the past that we must face, and apologize to those to whom we have committed these gestures.”

“Yes, in Algeria, there has been torture, but also the emergence of a state, of wealth, and of middle classes,” he told Point in November 2016. “It is the reality of colonization. There have been elements of civilization as well as of barbarism.”

“As for me, I place by the side of [the citizen-soldiers of the French revolution], the Senegalese infantrymen, the foreign resistance fighters, all those who made France without being born French, or even without being French at all.”

Marine Le Pen, the far-right National Front candidate: teaching about France’s colonial past “must be rebalanced so that children can perceive the complexity, the negative aspects, probably, but also the positive aspects.”

REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen

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