According to the Algerian press, the DGSE is said to have carried out “a recruitment campaign for former terrorists” in Algeria.
Jean-Noël Barrot in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 29, 2024. ( AFP / AMANUEL SILESHI )
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Sunday, December 15, described as “fanciful” the accusations of “destabilization” made by Algeria against the French secret services. His Algerian counterpart summoned the French ambassador to Algiers last week to send “a severe warning” to Paris, accused of having carried out “aggressive operations and maneuvers” to “destabilize” the country, several newspapers reported. Sunday.
“These are unfounded and fanciful accusations,” reacted Jean-Noël Barrot on
France Inter
who indicated that he had assured the ambassador of France's “support”.
Ambassador Stéphane Romatet was “signed
the firm disapproval of the highest Algerian authorities in the face of the numerous provocations
and French hostile acts towards Algeria”, writes the government daily
El Moudjahid
. According to
Algerian Evening
the Algerian side “deliberately insisted on clearly designating
the origin of these malicious acts, the French DGSE
(General Directorate of External Security)”.
The intelligence agency would have, according to this newspaper, carried out a certain number of “aggressive operations and maneuvers targeting institutions of the Algerian Republic with the obvious aim of destabilizing them and seriously harming our country”.
The summons of Stéphane Romatet “sounds like a severe warning, which comes the day after serious revelations on the involvement (of the) DGSE, in
a recruitment campaign for former terrorists in Algeria
for purposes of destabilization” of the country, according to
El Moudjahid
.
“Machiavellian plan”
National television and the public 24-hour news channel AL24 News recently broadcast a documentary which claimed that
a “Machiavellian plan” had been “brilliantly foiled by the Algerian security services”
recalls the newspaper.
The French ambassador was also accused of “equally serious facts, slippages which are no longer just an unfriendly act, but a notorious desire to greatly harm Algeria”, assures
Algerian Evening
. It is about
“meetings organized within the walls of several representations flying the French flag
in Algeria and recognized as such, 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”, according to this newspaper.
This new episode of tensions between Algiers and Paris occurs while the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal has been in detention for almost a month in Algeria, notably for “undermining territorial integrity”.
According to the newspaper
The World
his arrest on November 16 in Algiers could be due to his statements on a French media outlet reputed to be far-right where he took up Morocco's thesis according to which its territory had been truncated in favor of Algeria under French colonization.
Franco-Algerian relations were already in turmoil,
Algeria having withdrawn its ambassador to France this summer
after the announcement by Paris of strong support for a plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the autonomy of Western Sahara, a territory claimed by the separatists of the Polisario Front supported by Algiers.
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