The two countries are entering a multifaceted diplomatic crisis. Between a conflict over Western Sahara and that over influencers, how can we explain this crisis?
Relations between Paris and Algiers are particularly bad these days. The Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, even affirmed, Friday 10 Javier, that “Algeria seeks to humiliate France”. But why such strong words when Emmanuel Macron had started a process of rapprochement between the two countries in 2022?
It all starts in Western Sahara. This desert area is disputed between Morocco and Algeria, with no prospect of a diplomatic solution. But on July 30, 2024, the Moroccan royal palace made public a letter in which Emmanuel Macron recorded France’s recognition of “Moroccan sovereignty” over this region, considering that this was “the only basis” which would allow the conflict to be resolved. . A gesture hailed as a diplomatic victory in Rabat, but as flouting “international legality” in Algiers. Algeria even recalled its ambassador to Paris.
Three months later, on a visit to Morocco, Emmanuel Macron confirmed this recognition of France, further arousing Algeria’s anger.
The imprisonment of Boualem Sansal
After this event, relations between France and Algeria deteriorated. The Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal was arrested in mid-November at Algiers airport. Boualem Sansal was particularly noted for his statements going against the official positions of Algiers on the conflict with Morocco. The author having dual nationality, Emmanuel Macron was concerned about his case and made a statement at the Élysée in front of the ambassadors which did not please Algiers: “The Algeria that we love so much and with which we “We share so many children and so many stories that come together in a story that disgraces her, preventing a seriously ill man from getting treatment.” Emmanuel Macron also denounced a “totally arbitrary detention” of the 75-year-old writer.
In a press release published on January 7, the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was surprised “by the French president’s comments concerning Algeria which [le] dishonor” and denounced a “shameless and unacceptable interference” by Paris “in an internal Algerian affair”. For its part, the Algerian press denounced remarks with a colonialist tendency by the French president. The newspaper L’Expression notably accused him of diving back into “his old demons”.
The influencer crisis
Since January 4, several Algerian influencers and a Franco-Algerian have been arrested in France because of their content on social networks. One case continued to crystallize tensions between Paris and Algiers: that of the influencer “Dooualemn” on the social network TikTok where he is followed by 168,000 people. Aged 59, the man called in a video to “give a severe correction to a man appearing to reside in Algeria”, explains the Montpellier prosecutor’s office. He was deported to Algeria on January 9, five days after his arrest. But he was sent back to France the same evening after Algiers refused to welcome him on its soil, according to Bruno Retailleau. The Minister of the Interior assured, during a trip to Nantes, that France could not “bear this situation”.
But according to the Algerian authorities, the man had every reason to return to France: “The national subject to expulsion has lived in France for 36 years. He has had a residence permit there for 15 years. He is father of two children born from his union with a French national Finally, he is socially integrated to the extent that he has had a stable job for 15 years. In a press release, Algiers denounces the treatment of its national in France, ensuring that he “was not able to benefit from a proper legal process which constitutes a bulwark against the abuse of power to the extent that, his expulsion order, if it had been completed, would have deprived him of defending his rights during the trial scheduled for February 24”, also deploring the fact of not having been informed of the arrest, then of the expulsion of its national.
In this press release, Algiers condemns “the vengeful and hateful extreme right, as well as its kinship heralds within the French government” who “are currently leading a campaign of disinformation, even mystification, against Algeria. In doing so, they believe having found an outlet for their resentments and their frustrations. The influencer will be presented to a liberty and detention judge on Sunday.
