The teachers, who began their strike Sunday, said they won’t return to their classrooms until the government responds to their demands.

Monday’s protests are sure to irritate Algeria’s leaders, who are trumpeting legislative elections on May 10 as the freest and fairest ever.

Although Algeria hasn’t seen the widespread popular uprisings witnessed in other Arab countries, there are regular small-scale daily protests over economic issues, such as lack of housing or utilities.

“We have agreed to the release of seven people arrested on Algerian soil in Gao,” a member of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) told AFP by phone, in reference to the group abducted fom the consulate on April 5.

“We made an agreement with our brothers from Ansar Dine,” an Islamist group that has seized control of much of northern Mali together with Tuareg rebels in recent weeks, the spokesman said.

He did not give further details.

A Mali security official in Bamako had earlier told AFP that Ansar Dine was negotiating their release with MUJAO.

Ansar Dine “is currently involved in negotiations to free the seven employees from the Algerian consulate in Gao,” the security official said.

Algeria allowed Gaddafi’s wife, daughter and two of his sons to flee onto its territory after a rebellion ended the autocrat’s rule last year, infuriating the rebels in Libya who had already accused Algeria of favouring Gaddafi over them.

But speaking after his first visit to Algeria since last year’s revolt, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), said he had reached an understanding on the issue with his Algerian counterpart.

“We understand the humanitarian stance that Algeria took to take in the (Gaddafi) family, especially the women and children,” Abdel Jalil told reporters after talks with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

“But we remain convinced that it will not give refuge to those who represent a threat to Libya’s security… We have reached an agreement that anything that constitutes a threat to Libya, via financing or subversive activities, will not take place on Algerian territory.”

The Court of Appeal said senior immigration judges should consider the terror suspect’s claim for refugee status again, after hearing how he had moved to France, then been expelled and made his way to Britain.

Judges said the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal had “erred in law” when considering the man’s case at a hearing in 2010 and must rethink.

“(God willing), I have decided to bury my son in Algeria,” Mohamed Benalel Merah said, referring to his son Mohamed Merah, 23, who was shot dead by French police on Thursday in Toulouse at the end of a stand-off after his shooting attacks that killed seven.

“Mohamed has an Algerian passport and has been listed with the (Algerian) consulate in Toulouse since his birth,” the elder Merah said.

He also hit out against France for having shot his son instead of taking him alive at the end of a 32-hour siege at his apartment in Toulouse.

“France is a big country that had the means to take my son alive. They could have knocked him out with gas and taken him in,” he said. “They preferred to kill him.”

“I will hire the biggest named lawyers and work for the rest of my life to pay (their) costs. I will sue France for having killing my son.”

But some Algerians marked the date by renewing calls for the state to “criminalize colonialism” through the law.

Algeria’s 132 years as a French colony have always dogged the relations between the two countries, which are close but continually marked by flare-ups over their shared past.

Monday marked the anniversary of the March 19, 1962, cease-fire, but neither country held big formal ceremonies.

Referring to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Algerian daily El Watan noted the lack of commemoration for the anniversary by both countries with the headline “Algeria is chilly, Sarkozy hides his face.”

On Sunday the powerful National Organization of Mujahideen, those that fought in the 1954-1962 war of independence, pushed to re-energize a law that has languished in parliament for the past two years that would condemn France’s colonial past.

The law’s backers say it is a response to a 2005 law passed by the French parliament that some see as glorifying its time as a colonial power.

The National Liberation Front, the largest party in parliament and direct heir of the organization that battled the French, issued a statement putting forward its “immutable position” that France needs to apologize and acknowledge “its crimes against Algerians.”

For its part, the French government announced Friday that there will be no official commemoration of the anniversary since it was “a date that divides and reopens deep wounds of a painful page in the recent history of France.”

The statement, however, was not above some score-settling of its own.

“It also marks the beginning of the drama for those who were forcibly uprooted and the beginning of the tragedy for the harkis, massacred in the weeks that followed,” said the statement. Algerians who fought on the French side were known as harkis.

On Sunday, Said Abadou of Algeria’s organization of former fighters maintained that not a single harki was killed.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika attempted to steer clear of any mention about colonialism and France on the anniversary and instead tried to shift the focus to landmark parliamentary elections set for May.

While Algeria was spared the mass protests in 2011 that brought down other Arab governments, the president still initiated a series of political reforms to respond to popular dissatisfaction.

“It is our duty on the 50th anniversary of Victory Day to evaluate ourselves and judge if our actions are working to preserve the spirit of that time,” he said in his message to the nation.

Signed on March 18, the accords ended the 132-year-old French presence in Algeria, and on March 19 there was a cease-fire.

The accords were approved on April 8 by 90 percent of the French in a referendum, and on July 1, by 99 percent of the Algerians. Algeria’s official independence day is July 5, for which several grandiose celebrations are planned this year.

Bouteflika expressed the hope that the “children of the nation” would vote on May 10 with the same enthusiasm shown in the 1962 referendum.

There are fears, however, that the elections will witness low turnout by a population that is deeply cynical with the political process. The legislative elections five years earlier saw a turnout of just 37 percent.

There are constant small outbreaks of violence and rioting by a population that feels ill-served by the state.

The youth, which make up two-thirds of the population, are showing little interest in the colonial struggle, report history teachers, and the Ministry of Youth announced that “caravans of memory” would crisscross the nation to educate them about the accords.

“The youth know very little about this event which marked one of the great pages in the history of the country,” said Kawther Krim, the daughter of Krim Belkacem, who signed the accords for Algeria.

Kaikohe woman Mihi Puriri, 33, says she has not seen her daughters Iman, 5, and Assiya, 2, and son Zakaria, 1, for more than two weeks following a seven-month dispute with her husband, former boxing champion Mohamed Azzaoui, 36.

However, Ms Puriri and a family spokesman, who is also mediating the dispute, believed the couple would be able to negotiate an agreement and return to New Zealand with their children in less than two weeks.

Ms Puriri and her family travelled to Algeria in August because Mr Azzaoui said his father was gravely ill.

But on arrival she discovered he was not sick, said her husband took away the family passports and held them captive an apartment in his hometown of Mostaganem, said the Paris-based family spokesman.

With consular help Ms Puriri left the house, but could not take the children with her, he said.

Algeria’s relations with Libya were strained by the rebellion that overthrew Gaddafi last year, disrupting security cooperation between the neighbours that Western states believe is crucial to combating al Qaeda in the Sahara desert.

The decision to allow Gaddafi’s daughter, wife and two of his sons to enter Algeria after they fled their homes last year deepened a row that had already been simmering over Libyan allegations Algeria had been too slow to back the revolt.

Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, speaking to reporters after meeting his Libyan opposite number Ashour Bin Hayal, sought to repair the damage.

“Algeria took them (Gaddafi family members) in on humanitarian grounds. At the same time we will never allow them to interfere in Libyan affairs,” he said.

The dispute between Libya and Algeria has been rancorous. Some Libyans accused Algeria of supplying weapons to Gaddafi during last year’s revolt against his rule, an allegation Algeria denies.

When Gaddafi’s family members turned up in Algeria after Tripoli fell to the rebellion, a senior Libyan official accused Algeria of an “act of aggression.” Libyan border guards have barred some Algerian citizens from entering the country in retaliation.

There was a new round of recriminations in September last year after Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha telephoned a satellite television station from Algeria with a message of support for Gaddafi loyalists inside Libya.

According to the French-speaking El Watan, 15 SA-24 and 28 SAM-7 Russian-made man-portable surface-to-air missiles were found at a location in the southern desert called In Amenas.

The cache, 43 kilometres (26 miles) from the Libyan border, also included large amounts of ammunition.

The weapons were buried in the sand and discovered at an unspecified date thanks to information provided by smugglers operating in the area.

Such missiles require no specific training to operate and maintain and can be used to shoot down planes or helicopters in mid-air, the newspaper said.

“SAM-7 missiles are a serious threat to civil aviation. They can strike aircrafts flying at an altitude of 11,000 to 13,000 feet,” El Watan said, quoting an anonymous official.

Lamari died after being rushed to a hospital in the town of Biskra south of Algiers, the news agency quoted his brother, Khaled, as saying. The Ministry of Defense said the cause of death was a heart attack.

Lamari was one of the generals who overthrew Algeria’s government in January 1992 to forestall what appeared to be an upcoming victory by an Islamist victory after the first round of a national election.