Nothing is going well between Algeria and France, more than ever on the verge of rupture. The Boualem Sansal affair has further complicated the already very tense relations between the two capitals for several months.
The Algeria – France relationship in recent years is a succession of disappointed hopes and above all crises, one more acute than the other. In these repeated troubles, the extremists have weighed in with all their weight as the only actors in this relationship. More than ever, the bilateral relationship is being held hostage by the extremes.
Algeria – France: tumultuous relations
The reactions heard in France following the arrest and incarceration of the writer Boualem Sansal stem from the radicalization of positions regarding what the France-Algeria relationship should be.
As with every quarrel, extremist voices drown out those who call for restraint to save what can still be saved from a relationship that should never have gotten to this point.
Presidents Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Emmanuel Macron have started to open a new page since 2020, starting with the flattening of the memorial dispute, but they came up against the complexity of the files and the harmful action of those who did not want to such a rapprochement.
For almost five years, there has been no shortage of grievances on both sides and Algeria has had to recall its ambassador to Paris three times.
The rise of the extremist movement in French society and at the polls ended up having a fatal impact on the relationship with Algeria, which is no longer a matter of diplomacy but in many respects of France's internal policy.
Opposition to rapprochement with Algeria is a refusal in principle by those nostalgic for French Algeria who put pressure on President Macron before his accession to the Élysée, when, as a candidate, he described colonialism in Algiers as a crime against humanity. In this memorial file, the policy of “at the same time” by Emmanuel Macron has shown his limits.
Its “drip by drop” gestures and limiting responsibility for colonial abuses to a certain level of the chain of command, were not received with enthusiasm in Algiers. In France, the far right has never given up pressure to prevent her from going further in what she calls “repentance“.
It was this pressure from the extremist movement, which accused him of giving in to Algeria without compensation, which pushed the French president into his first major misstep in the relationship with Algeria.
In September 2021, he attacked the Algerian government head-on, accused of living off “memorial annuity” and called into question the existence of Algeria as a nation before its colonization by France. Simultaneously, France decreed the reduction of visa quotas for the three Maghreb countries, including Algeria.
Algeria – France: extremists push to the point of no return
The crisis thus triggered lasted several months, before the promising warming of 2022, punctuated by a visit “very successful” of President Macron in Algeria in August of the same year.
The Amira Bouraoui affair, named after the Algerian activist who illegally left Algeria for Tunisia in February 2023, before returning to France, gave rise to another quarrel between the two capitals, however quickly overcome. Algeria accused the French services of having exfiltrated him.
The current crisis is much more complicated. It was triggered by the decision of the French president, last July, to align completely with Moroccan theses in the Western Sahara issue.
This turnaround by France is also the culmination of pressure from the pro-Moroccan far-right for the “rebalancing” of Paris' Maghreb policy while the Franco-Moroccan relationship was at its worst.
A few weeks before this episode, France adopted a new government, some members of which are hostile to Algeria, such as the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau who, upon taking office, promised to go to standoff with Algeria over the issue of consular passes.
Illegal immigration, and specifically the question of deportations at the borders, constitutes one of the points on which the bilateral relationship has stumbled in recent years.
The extremist movement has made the repeal of the 1968 immigration agreement an obsession. The idea is from Xavier Driencourt, twice ambassador to Algiers, who argued in May 2023 that his country must take this step even if it means breaking off diplomatic relations.
The economic relationship is not doing any better. Even before the crises of recent years, the weight of French companies in Algeria declined in favor of operators from other countries, notably Turkish and Chinese. Last November, a rumor spread in Algiers about the blocking of foreign trade with France, but it was quickly denied.
Extremists on both sides and network breakdown
It is in such an already deleterious context that the Boualem Sansal affair occurred. A very delicate matter which calls for moderation and restraint, but which is used to add fuel to the fire.
The Franco-Algerian writer committed a slip-up that does not pass muster in Algeria by maintaining that French colonialism deprived Morocco of part of its territory to grant it to Algeria.
His arrest in Algeria was nevertheless very poorly received in France. If the two governments have so far shown caution by avoiding discussing it publicly as much as possible, extreme voices see it as a godsend to go to the point of no return.
This is the direction in which the comments heard over the last two weeks, whether in the European Parliament or on French platforms and social networks, come from the same warmongers.
If France has its extreme right and a part of the right which publicly displays its hostility to Algeria for various economic or historical reasons, on the other side of the Mediterranean, there are also those who are pushing for a break. They are certainly less noisy than their French counterparts, but they exist and are powerful and influential. The Sansal affair revealed the extent of the weight, on each side, of the hostile blocs on either side of the Mediterranean.
Today there are more demolishers of bridges and links than builders, at a time when the networks between the two countries are broken down, because they have not been renewed. This void has given way to extremists.
In Algeria, those who display their hostility to deep relations with France such as the Islamists or a significant fringe of nationalists are often on the front line to defend Arabization to drive French out of schools and universities as well as rapprochement with other countries. other economic and political powers, such as Turkey and even China.
On April 8, 2021, a few days before the meeting of the High-Level Joint Ministerial Committee, the Minister of Labor El Hachemi Djaaboub, who comes from the Islamist movement, described France as “ traditional and eternal enemy » from Algeria. A statement which caused an outcry in France. Even President Emmanuel Macron reacted by calling it “ unacceptable ».
Certain specialists in France who boast of knowing the Algerian system have long neglected, or continue to do so through ignorance, the existence of a “ far-right » Algerian which, for cultural and historical reasons, is pushing towards rupture.
