In the midst of a diplomatic crisis between Algiers and Paristhe French Minister of the Interior persists and signs. Bruno Retailleau reiterated his desire to go into a standoff with Algeria, particularly on the issue of consular passes, necessary for the execution of the OQTF (obligation to leave French territory).
For the tenth anniversary of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Retailleau was interviewed by Le Parisien. Due to current events, he was reminded that it will be difficult, “for diplomatic reasons”, to expel to Algeria the Algerian influencers recently arrested for calls for violence.
“We must indeed obtain consular passes, and therefore assume a standoff,” replied the French Minister of the Interior.
At the beginning of last October, Retailleau proposed “dialogue” on the issue of passes with Morocco, a country he “respects enormously”, and threatened to go into a “standoff” with Algeria, which he he put it in the category of “recalcitrant countries”.
Regarding the Algerian influencers arrested last Friday and Sunday, he assures that “whatever happens”, they “will be judged”. The first was to be on Monday, the other two on February 1 and 24, he said. “These individuals are testing the resistance of the Republic: let’s assume the balance of power! I will never let anything go, ever,” he assured.
The three Algerian influencers were arrested in Brest, Echirolles and Montpellier for having launched calls for violence against Algerian activists based in France and advocating terrorism in videos posted online on Tik-Tok.
It was Bruno Retailleau himself who announced each of these arrests in tweets on
France-Algeria relationship: Bruno Retailleau persists and signs
The arrest of the three influencers comes at a time when Algerian-French relations are at their worst. On Monday January 6, President Emmanuel Macron violently took Algeria to task, saying that it was “dishonoring” itself by keeping the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal in detention.
On December 18, Retailleau reiterated his position regarding consular passes. “Where countries cooperate with us, then we can grant visas and when there is no cooperation, I am for a very clear blockage,” he said on BFMTV.
Regarding the Sansal affair, he said that “France would be able to deploy a certain number of responses” if the writer is not released.
In his interview with Le Parisien, he also reiterated his known positions on issues such as immigration or the Islamic veil. “The veil is not a simple piece of fabric: it is a standard for Islamism, and a marker of the inferiorization of women in relation to men,” he said, adding that he is in favor of banning the veil even at university.
Regarding the new government's migration policy, the Minister of the Interior expressed the same firmness. “For my part, I will not give an inch on immigration,” he assured.
Bruno Retailleau is one of those who, in France, contributed, through their declarations, to further deteriorating the relationship with Algeria. He is notably a staunch supporter, with the former French ambassador to Algeria Xavier Driencourt, of the revocation of the 1968 Algerian-French agreement on immigration.
This agreement has become “the standard behind which the army of extremists marches”, retorted last October the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
