The Minister of the Interior warns, he will not give in to his ambition: to make Algeria hosts his nationals subject to OQTF in France.
It is a real showdown that Bruno Retailleau engaged with Algeria, and he does not bother. “I am not there for a place but to fulfill a mission, that of protecting the French. As long as I have the conviction of being useful and that the means are given to me, I will be mobilized,” assured the Minister of the Interior in an interview with Parisian Saturday March 15.
And no question for him to give in on the file: he demands from Algeria that she accepts to welcome her nationals in an irregular situation in France and subject to an obligation to leave the territory. “If I was asked to give in on this major subject for the security of the French, obviously I would refuse it,” he thundered. He could even go as far as to resign.
“I will be intransigent”
A threat he wants for France, but especially of Algeria. “Humiliation is enough,” he says. “From now on, my line, which is that of the balance of power with Algeria, is that of the government.” And to announce: “If Algeria does not resume its dangerous nationals, we will start a graduated response.” A response that could go as far as questioning the 1968 agreements between Paris and Algiers. This agreement facilitates the conditions of stay, traffic and employment of Algerians in France.
Firmness he considers necessary to ensure the safety of the French. “I don’t want a second Mulhouse.” He referred to a knife attack on February 22, having killed a dead and five wounded, whose suspected author is a 37 -year -old Algerian under OQTF and whom Algeria had refused ten times to welcome. Interior and foreign ministries transmitted a list of nationals on Friday “who represent a danger to Algeria and who want to expel”. “I will be intransigent.”
At the end of February, Algeria had declared “categorically,” the ultimatums and the French “categorically. The country “will apply strict and immediate reciprocity to all the restrictions brought to mobility between Algeria and France”, had reacted the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Any questioning of the 1968 agreement […] will be followed by Algeria in the same questioning of the other agreements and protocols of the same nature. “