LThe French ambassador to Algeria, Stéphane Romatet, was “summoned” by the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week, according to several media, including the government daily El Moudjahid.
According to this official media, it would be a matter of “notifying him of the firm disapproval of the highest Algerian authorities in the face of the numerous French provocations and hostile acts towards Algeria […] These actions cannot remain without consequences.”
« Paris wants to destabilize Algeria »
The information, which has not yet been relayed by the official press agency, APS, or by Foreign Affairs, is detailed in other newspapers. “During the meeting which took place within the framework of the convocation, strong warnings were launched and the French ambassador was asked to transmit them to the authorities of his country, concerning the escalation of hostilities by the French Directorate General of External Security (DGSE) targeting state institutions supported by the bad intentions of Paris which wants to destabilize Algeria,” writes El Khabar.
What is it about? On December 7, the official Algerian television, ENTV, and the public continuous news channel, AL24, broadcast an “investigation”, titled “Failure to plot, the eagles of Algeria triumph”. A former element of the Islamic State organization in Syria and Iraq, who has since returned to Algeria and having spent several years in prison, testifies openly in front of the camera about the recruitment attempt, according to him, in 2022, by a DGSE officer, who presented himself as a member of the Artemis association, a French association fighting against radicalization.
ALSO READ Tebboune on his visit to France: “I will not go to Canossa! » Extracts from video surveillance and supporting photos, the “investigation” traces the meetings between the young Algerian and his French interlocutor, who allegedly asked him for information on radical circles in Algiers, but also “to join armed groups in Niger » and “start a terrorist group in Algiers”.
“A Machiavellian plan brilliantly foiled by the Algerian security services. This nonsense leaves no room for doubt as to the intentions of French lobbies hostile to Algeria and their obstinacy driven by the use of underhanded methods to destabilize the country,” comments El Moudjahid in its edition this morning, linking this affair to the “media offensive of rare intensity » in France following the arrest of the writer Boualem Sansal and his incarceration.
Armament for the MAK
The same media cited above add that “supporting evidence, Algiers provided the official representative of France in Algeria with strongly probative elements of this repeated and blatant hostility on the part of Paris”, citing “attempts, fortunately foiled by the Algerian security services, French pharmacies or in more or less direct link with the highest French spheres of influence, to introduce via the port of Béjaïa a quantity of weapons and ammunition from from the French port of Marseille. Armament whose nature and quantity have not been specified to us, but whose destination is no longer in doubt in the eyes of Algiers: the MAK, the terrorist movement of the renegade Ferhat Mehenni,” according to Algerian Evening.
ALSO READ These Kabyle separatists who ulcerate Algiers “Algiers would have been keen to remind the French ambassador to Algeria of the protection and active support granted by Paris to active members of the terrorist groups called Rachad and MAK. The French capital went so far as to offer and make available logistics allowing these two terrorist organizations to carry out “with complete peace and impunity” subversive activities against Algeria. »
Rachad, group of former members of the Islamic Salvation Front (dissolved in 1992) in exile, and the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia are described by Algiers as “terrorist entities”.
In the list of reprimands are also cited “ meetings bringing together, around French diplomats of various ranks, mainly consular agents reporting to the DGSE, people known for their declared and permanent hostility towards Algerian institutions. For the moment, and in the state of our information, the names of these “Algerians” in conclave in the enclosures of the official French representation in Algeria have not been communicated”, still according to the same source.
« Patience limits exceeded »
During the summons of the French ambassador to the Foreign Affairs, “Algiers also wanted to express in the strongest possible manner its refusal to further tolerate such actions and proven attempts at blackmail,” reports Algerian Evening. “Failing which, reveals our source, the Democratic and Popular Algerian Republic places the cursor higher, explaining bluntly that Algerian patience has limits which, in this case, have been exceeded, our country therefore giving its all right to respond in urgent forms, intensity and gradation to these aggressive, malicious acts and actions which have lasted too long,” continues the Algerian daily.
ALSO READ The Boualem Sansal affair at the heart of Algiers-Rabat-Paris tensions
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
This new diplomatic and media escalation is part of the continuity of the crisis between Algiers and Paris since France's recognition of the “Moroccan nature” of Western Sahara last July. Tensions increasing since business controversies Camel Daoud and Boualem Sansal in a triangle of crises Algiers-Rabat-Paris.
Officially, France has not yet reacted to this new escalation.
