For several months, relations between French and Algerian governments have been tense. We explain to you why and come back to the unique ties that unite the two countries.
Western Sahara
What set fire to the powder is the subject of Western Sahara. This region of almost 270,000 km2located in southern Morocco, is disputed between the Moroccan government, which claims it, and independentist movements supported by Algeria. Almost a year ago, in July 2024, Emmanuel Macron publicly announced to support Morocco in this conflict. For Algeria, France has crossed a red line.
A diplomatic crisis
Algeria arrested the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal in November 2024, while he was descending from a plane from Paris. Aged and patient, he was sentenced to five years in prison for questioning Algerian sovereignty (he said that Algeria had empipet in Moroccan territory under French colonization). France has tried to release it, in vain for the moment.
On the French side, justice condemned Algerian influencers living in France as Doualemn, followed by 140,000 people on Tiktok, accused of having posted a video calling for violence. France seeks to expel it, but Algeria refuses to welcome it … Last week, a consular agent was arrested in the Parisian suburbs, suspected of having participated in the kidnapping, in April 2024, of an opponent of the Abdelmadjid Tebboune regime. In retaliation, the Algerian authorities asked, on Monday, April 14, from 12 agents from the French Embassy to leave Algerian territory in forty-eight hours. And France replied by expelling 12 Algerian diplomatic agents. Atmosphere !
A change of diet
It is since 2019, and access to the power of a new president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, that Franco-Algerian relations have been complicated. “After the peaceful contestation movement, called Hirak, which gradually died with the arrival of COVID and the ban on demonstrations, the Algerian government has become more intransigent, limiting freedom of expression. Mr. Tebboune also seeks to put the question of French colonization at the heart of diplomatic relations, ”underlines Abderahmen Moumen, historian and researcher. In 2021, a political crisis linked to this complex past had already exploded between Emmanuel Macron and Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Years of appeasement
However, France and Algeria have started a work of reconciliation to heal years of conflict (the French colonization of Algeria lasted more than a century, and the war of independence between 1954 and 1962 left thousands of deaths). In the early 2000s, the Algerian president of the time, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, promised a “national reconciliation” and Jacques Chirac, French president, claimed friendship between the two countries.
-In 2012, François Hollande officially recognized – and this is a first – the suffering inflicted on Algeria. In 2017, in the middle of the electoral campaign, Emmanuel Macron spoke of colonization as a “crime against humanity”.
Human ties
Beyond this painful past, France and Algeria are united by millions of citizens who have a common history. We can speak of Algerian families who came to settle in France, Algerians who fought on behalf of France or the harkis (soldiers who helped the French army during the Algerian war). On the French side, black feet and veterans have memories of Algeria in memory.
Texte: Riva Brinet
Image : HL_XBOUZAS ; Adobe Stock
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