Often seesawing, Franco-Algerian relations have deteriorated since last summer. The tension between the two countries was illustrated recently when Algeria refused entry into its territory to an Algerian influencer expelled from France.
“I believe that we must now normalize our diplomatic relationship with Algeria,” declared Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau in an interview with L’Express published this Tuesday, January 22, adding that “the time has come to turn the page.
In an interview largely devoted to France's tumultuous relations with Algeria, which recently soured when this country refused entry into its territory to an Algerian influencer expelled from France, Bruno Retailleau called for “dispassion” from the exchanges with the former colonized country.
Building “peaceful links”
We must “ensure that we finally enter into a relationship of equals, without ulterior motives, devoid of this idea of a perpetual right to draw on memory to reproach France for past events”, he said. he indicated.
“The time has come to turn the page. By objectifying the facts, by building peaceful, that is to say reciprocal, links,” he added.
The minister nevertheless repeated his wish to review the Franco-Algerian agreements of 1968, which he considers “dated and unbalanced”. This bilateral agreement signed in 1968 creates a unique status for Algerian nationals in terms of movement, residence and employment.
-The text, which falls under international law and therefore takes precedence over French law, excludes Algerians from common law in matters of immigration.
“Finding a balanced view of the colonial period”
The often checkered relations between France and Algeria have deteriorated since last summer with the announcement of Paris' support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Several issues then continued to darken bilateral relations, including the incarceration since mid-November in Algeria of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal.
“We proposed a guilt-inducing story, repentance, which ended up affecting this French pride. We must rebuild this French pride” continued the minister when asked about “anti-French sentiment”.
“We must rediscover a balanced view of the colonial period. Colonization is of course dark pages that must be denounced, and we have done so. There were also, I say, contributions and links that were created,” said Bruno Retailleau.
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