The crisis between Algeria and France continues. The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded Thursday, February 27, to Paris announcements on the review of the 1968 agreements which bind the two countries, by rejecting “categorically the ultimatums and threats” of French power. “Any questioning of the 1968 agreement […] Will be followed by Algeria in the same questioning of other agreements and protocols of the same nature, “he said in a statement, promising” strict reciprocity “of any French initiative.
François Bayrou had indicated the day before that the review of the agreements, within “one month to six weeks”, could lead to a questioning of the rules currently in force. “In the climbing climb […]Algeria has not taken the initiative of any rupture and let the French part assume its full and whole responsibility alone, “assures Algerian diplomacy, accusing a” revancharde and hateful “French extreme right” of stirring tensions.
These revived on Saturday February 22, after a new Islamist terrorist attack in Alsace, in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin). This knife attack was committed by a man of Algerian nationality, subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF). According to the Prime Minister, Algiers Algiers refused “fourteen” taken over to resume his national in his borders. What arouse the anger of the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, who again pointed out a desire on the part of Algiers to “humiliate” France, a few weeks after similar cases linked to expulsions of Algerian influencers.
“Alophobia”
On the Algerian side, several media criticize what they see as a “overbidding” of France vis-à-vis Algiers. Thursday, the French -speaking daily The expression Displayed in one two French police officers controlling passports to a customs post. “The mae [ministère des Affaires étrangères] Reacts to French measures against Algerian nationals: an escalation with incalculable consequences’ “, writes the newspaper, close to power, in bold on its first page.
Other publication, Algerian evening denounces for its part the “Alterophobic” character of the measures taken by Paris, and a crisis “instrumentalized with excessive”. A editorialist ofEl Watan Mistigerates France for its part“A nation lagging behind in a developed world, reduced to showing its muscles to the small states but which folds the knee before the great powers like the United States, Russia and China “.
Online, several observers also express their dissatisfaction. “The rupture is no longer unthinkable,” describes the TSA-Algeria information site. “Algeria does not find an interlocutor other than extremist voices. Invited by President Tebboune to express himself, Emmanuel Macron matures in silence.”
In fact, the President of the Republic has not yet expressed himself on discord between the two countries. On the other hand, he had provided early January his support for the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, imprisoned in Algeria for accusations of “attack on state security”. The French leader had declared that the author was “detained in a completely arbitrary manner by the Algerian officials”.
The start of the crisis occurred last summer. France had then recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a contested region which has been the subject of a conflict for 50 years between Rabat and the separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers. During his state trip to Morocco last fall, Emmanuel Macron had confirmed this position.