The Chief Rabbi of France Haïm Korsia is ultimately not part of the 90-person delegation accompanying President Macron to Algeria on August 25.
Son of Jews born in Algeria, the Chief Rabbi, contacted by RFI, regretted his absence due to his contamination with Covid-19 which forced him to give up his trip at the last minute.
The announcement of the presence in the French delegation of Haïm Korsia had not gone unnoticed by the Algerians. The prospect of his coming, unprecedented in Algeria, had been criticized by the leader of the Algerian Islamists of the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), Abderrazak Makri and several other political parties.
In a post on Facebook, the latter had wondered: what does France seek by bringing the Rabbi into the official French delegation if not normalization with Israel? “. The political leader added that we are also taking the grand rector of the Paris mosque “ for camouflage “, before questioning:” Doesn’t France position itself as the leader of the separation between state and religion? »
The interview with Haïm Korsia, published Wednesday on the site of France 24 in Arabic, particularly ignites the Algerian web. On social networks, some Internet users accuse him of supporting “ unconditionally the State of Israel in a country that positions itself strongly in favor of the Palestinian cause and denounces what they consider to be an incitement to bring Israel and the Algerian state closer together.
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