In Algeria, it is the absolute “must have” among the local elite. Understand, to summarize, all the components of the military-political power, the only valid one, of the country. But also their wives, their wives’ girlfriends, children, children’s friends, mistresses, the secretary’s secretary, etc. Reserved in principle only for diplomats and the like, the diplomatic passport is this famous sesame that good society snatches from Algerian style.
The advantage it offers, and not the least: being exempt from a visa to go to France, THE destination of the Algerian elite where soldiers, political leaders, businessmen – and of course their respective smalas – go to breathe , place their pawns by investing in real estate or restaurants or even hide their money. It’s also where people like to be treated, preferably at the expense of the French taxpayer, to go shopping and show off a fortune that would lead straight to El-Harrach if it were revealed to the country.
A working tool whose sole purpose, in a country where things happen normally, is to facilitate the travel of diplomats and senior officials, the diplomatic passport has become the object of all desire. The Algiers regime even makes it a tool of power, granting it everywhere and to all those close to it – and their loved ones – and depriving those who are in the way or who by chance talk a little too much. Even if they were (real) diplomats. At “countries of the upside down world» as Jean-Louis Levet and Paul Tolila like to describe it in their book Algerian evileverything is permitted. To those in power. And then, we are not going to ask X’s wife or Y’s mistress to queue in front of a French consulate or wait for confirmation of a miserable appointment from the local subsidiary of VFS Global, l ‘equivalent to our TLS Contact. Too much h’chouma. A final offense, even a crime of lèse-majesté.
The rule of friends and cousins
The Algerian government uses and abuses the diplomatic passport at will. Former senior officials, including former ministers and diplomats, have recently learned this the hard way. “Since the presidency of Abdelmadjid Tebboune exercises its right of oversight over the granting of diplomatic passports, Algerian personalities interested in obtaining this precious sesame must be patient.», indicates the well-informed Africa Intelligence. Former head of government Sid Ahmed Ghozali, decorated on August 29 with Japan’s highest honorary distinction, the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, had to wait more than five months to obtain it. Two other former prime ministers, Mokdad Sifi and Ali Benflis, have been waiting for more than a year. Let us specify that, very generously, the presidential decree of June 1, 2023, which sets the conditions for granting official travel documents issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stipulates that diplomatic passports are also issued to former heads of government and former ambassadors and consuls general.
Read also: Sahara. Reprisals of the Algiers regime against France: Paris’ response plan, according to Xavier Driencourt
Former Minister of Communication Abdelaziz Rahabi, also former ambassador to Mexico and Spain, saw his passport suddenly blocked on September 11. His mistake: having published a text on the X network in which he commented on the results of the latest presidential charade. Algeria “enters a phase of ungovernability due to the non-satisfaction of the major demands of Hirak and the closure of the political and media fields“, he wrote.
Enough for him to be condemned to the stake… and to the withdrawal of his travel document. All this is not very “diplomatic”, but let’s move on.
Diplomatic passports for life
Suffice to say that the diplomatic passport serves as both a carrot and a stick for the neighbor and is the subject of all kinds of abuse. Former French ambassador to Algeria for two mandates (from 2008 to 2012, then from 2017 to 2020) and a fine connoisseur of the “System”, Xavier Driencourt continues to denounce the practices to which this “freedom” gives rise, more particularly the exemption visa by France for Algerians holding a diplomatic passport. For him, it is an arbitrary and unhealthy privilege which mainly benefits the generals and leaders of the Algiers regime as well as their families.
Read also: Xavier Driencourt: “The entire Algerian nomenclature can come to France without a visa to do their business and seek treatment”
At the origin of this anomaly: an exchange of letters stipulating this kindness, dating from 2007, between Bernard Kouchner, then French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his Algerian counterpart at the time, Mourad Medelci. It was enough for the entire junta and its beneficiaries to pounce on the windfall.
«Diplomatic passports are distributed very widely to the entire Algerian nomenclature: diplomats, but also the military, politicians, their families. They have diplomatic passports for life, while on the French side, it is still very limited», protested the former French diplomat on September 6, during his appearance on the show “Points de Vue” on the channel Le Figaro TVcalling for the repeal of this privilege.
«When I left Algiers, I returned my diplomatic passport to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And so, all these people from the Algerian nomenclature come and can come to France without a visa to do their financial business, to get treatment. If we wanted to send a signal to the Algerian system, we would start by denouncing this agreement“, he added.
A “reset” to “not give in to the dey of Algiers”
For him, the solution is ready. As long as it is a simple exchange of letters, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs can easily put an end to it “without even the authorization of the President of the Republic“. In a column published on September 30 in the columns of the same FigaroXavier Driencourt returns to the charge. To denounce the agreement, “three months’ notice is enough… Ending this exchange of letters, which falls within the sole competence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, would send a signal».
A signal that is part of a number of cards “which, taken together, if there was a strong political will, that is to say the will not to give in to the dey of Algiers, would allow a sort of reset in migratory relations with Algiers».
Much more than the Franco-Algerian agreement of 1968, which gives Algerian citizens specific rights and facilities in terms of residence permits, transformation of student visas into business visas, family reunification, absence of conditions of integration into French society, the impossibility of withdrawing the residence permit, it is the imposition of visas on Algerian diplomatic passports which would constitute the most painful measure for the leaders of the regime. And even if some of them could bring themselves to do so, the pressure from their wives, children and mistresses would be untenable.
