“We can clearly see that Algeria is trying to humiliate France.” The Ministry of the Interior was quick to react after the express return of the Algerian influencer “Doualemn”, deported to his country on Thursday January 9. Accused of having published videos on Tiktok calling for torture targeting “an opponent of the current regime in Algeria” according to the public prosecutor of Montpellier, he was not accepted by Algeria which immediately sent him back to Paris, where he was placed in an administrative detention center in Seine-et-Marne. “We have reached an extremely worrying threshold with Algeria”worried Bruno Retailleau this Friday, December 10 on the sidelines of a trip to Nantes on the subject of visas.
Unable to force Algeria to accept the influencer on your territory, Bruno Retailleau still intends to put pressure on the country. He would thus like to use the “commercial leverage”by playing in particular on the “customs tariffs” et “development aid”. In recent days, three Algerians and a Franco-Algerian woman have been arrested in France for having posted content online calling for violent acts, often against opponents of the Algerian regime. According to several Algerian opponents in France interviewed by AFP, these particularly violent messages intensified after France, a former colonial power, changed its doctrine on Western Sahara in July.
1968 agreements
This controversy has relaunched the debate on the right on the 1968 agreements, linking France and Algeria since the end of the war of independence, like Valérie Pécresse, president of the Ile-de-France regional council. . “I have every confidence in Bruno Retailleau to respond to this affront, including by opening the debate on the 68 agreements!” she wrote Thursday evening on X. This agreement which governs “the movement, stay and work of Algerians in France”, specifies the Ministry of the Interior, makes it possible in particular to facilitate the arrival of Algerians on French soil and their obtaining a residence permit.
But the call for the revocation of the 68 agreements came mainly from the far right, the left having not reacted on the subject. This is evidenced by the words of former LR president Eric Ciotti on X, who has allied himself with the National Rally since this summer’s legislative elections: “The only response is the immediate revocation of the 1968 agreements and no longer welcoming a single Algerian into France.” Same position for Jordan Bardella, the president of the RN, who lists the retaliatory measures to be applied according to him: “freezing of private fund transfers, suspension of the issuance of visas, end of public development assistance”. “Algeria has not respected France for several years now and France has failed to ensure its interests are respected on the international scene”he insists at the microphone of BFM TV this Friday, calling for a standoff with Algeria.
For several months, the far right has made the question of public development aid granted to Algeria one of its main pet issues. “In five years, we gave 842 million euros to this country”lambasted Reconquest MEP Sarah Knafo once again this Friday morning on RTL, urging the government to stop this aid. In September, CheckNews already returned to this figure, taken from an article by Challenges from April 18. But he mentions the sum of 842 million dollars, or 753 million euros. Paid to Algeria between 2017 and 2022, in six years therefore, and not five, as the elected Reconquête asserts. Furthermore, according to the government website, public development aid for Algiers amounts to 588 million euros between 2018 and 2022, not placing the country in the top ten countries receiving French aid.
