This Sunday, June 30, the French went to the polls to elect their deputies, with a second round scheduled for Sunday, July 7. As of July 8, France should have a new government. According to the polls, the National Rally (RN, ex-National Front), a far-right party, has a strong chance of obtaining an absolute majority in Parliament, which would allow it to form a government and lead the country.
The former French ambassador to Algiers twice, Xavier Driencourt, tipped by French media to become the next Minister of Foreign Affairs in the event of the RN’s victory in the 2024 legislative elections, recently published an article in Le Figaro. He analyzes relations between Paris and Algiers in the hypothetical context of an RN government, heir to the National Front (extreme right).
France and Algeria at the crossroads of two crises
Through a curious political game on both sides of the Mediterranean, France and Algeria find themselves simultaneously immersed in electoral periods. France due to the dissolution of the National Assembly and Algeria because of the presidential election brought forward by the senile next door to September 7, 2024. In Bari, the images of the G7 showed two men who, perhaps in a few months, will represent two countries, once again, in crisis. In reality, these conciliabules are more intended to reassure Algerian opinion. But, it is clear that the period that is opening is far from being a quiet river for the Algerian power.
Yet, everything was going well for the Maghreb, until recently, according to Xavier Driencourt. The official French media even dared to warm up relations between Paris and Rabat after several years of political estrangement. On the Algerian side, preparations were being made for a possible state visit by the Algerian puppet president to Paris for “September or October”. The two foreign ministries, like the embassies of the two countries, were firmly working on it.
While in Algeria, the signals are multiplying without confirming that the Raïs will be the candidate chosen by the army for its “clean or dirty re-election”, Algerian decision-makers have still not made their choice public, thus preventing, to the senile person next door to officially submit their candidacy. In this scenario, he needs the support of Paris, but discreet support since the Algerian electoral campaign inevitably serves as a pretext to insult the usual enemy, France, says the former Ambassador to Algeria.
The specter of the National Rally
In this context, Algeria did not deprive itself of intervening in the French political debate: first, by sending to the front its usual spokespeople, media and journalists close to or paid by the government, then the rector of the Paris Mosque, immediately summoned to Algiers and charged with warning French voters (of Algerian origin, but not only) against the “fascist danger” and “those nostalgic for French Algeria”.
That said, the worst unknown for Algiers would obviously be a power coming from the RN with Jordan Bardella as Prime Minister. There, it is the leap into the void for the Algerian system: unknown interlocutors, young, having never exercised power, ignorant of Algeria and its rules as well as its system, reputed to be close to the pieds-noirs and having never made the “trip to Algiers” usual prior to all French elections.
All Algiers knows of Jordan Bardella is his speech on immigration and the promise to renegotiate or put an end to the Franco-Algerian agreement on immigration of December 27, 1968. An abrogation of this agreement that the good interlocutor, the one who comes from the moderate, Gaullist or Giscardian right, calls for implementation by advocating the Fondapol note. Algiers understood that the matter was becoming serious and that it was necessary to react, Driencourt said.
Algeria between uncertainties and manipulations
The Algerian government had desperately built its future relationship with Paris, during the potential “state visit” planned for the fall. But there is no longer any question of a state visit from one side or another in the current context. Farewell therefore, for the Algerian president with the unpronounceable name, of the possible memorial gestures promised by Macron, the few pieces which belonged to the Emir Abdelkader and the compensation by France for the nuclear tests carried out at Reggane. With Jordan Bardella in power, it is difficult to see such an initiative in this direction.
All the more so since for the senile people on the balcony of the Muppets show made in Algeria, it would be necessary to consider the positioning of a new French government vis-à-vis Rabat and the “esteemed thorny question” of the Moroccan Sahara. In short, nothing is happening as planned and Algeria must congratulate itself on not having to really rub shoulders with the ballot boxes and depending only on its generals.
