Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune denounces the “deleterious climate” between Algeria and France and judges that the two countries must resume dialogue, once Emmanuel Macron has clearly expressed the wish, in an interview with the newspaper Opinion. “The climate is deleterious. We waste time with President Macron,” said the head of state, saying that he wanted to avoid a “separation that would become irreparable”, in this interview published online on Sunday. “Nothing is advancing anymore except for trade relations. Political dialogue is almost interrupted,” he added, regretting “hostile statements every day” of politicians.
The two countries have been immersed in a profound diplomatic crisis since the announcement at the end of July by Paris of support for the Moroccan autonomy plan in Western Sahara, territory with non -defined status at the UN and theater of a conflict for half a -Siècle between Morocco and the Saharawi separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers. The disputes between the two countries have been constantly coming out.
“The French Republic is first of all its president”
Faced with the deterioration of relations, the Algerian president says he is “totally agree” with the need to resume dialogue, mentioned in particular by the chief of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot. With conditions: it would indeed be necessary according to him strong political declarations in this sense, “that the French president, the intellectuals, the supporters of the relationship can make their voices heard”. “It is not for me to do them. For me, the French Republic, it is first of all its president,” he adds without further details.
Asked about the case of the writer Boualem Sansal, criticism of the Algerian power incarcerated since mid-November, Abdelmadjid Tebboune judges that this “is not an Algerian problem. It is a problem for those who created it […] Other cases of binationals have not raised so much solidarity “.” It is a scabrous affair aimed at mobilizing against Algeria “, according to him. If the writer, who obtained French nationality, did not Not to benefit from a consular visit, the Algerian president judges that he is “first of Algeria”. He can regularly call his wife and daughter, “he said.