The boss of the DGSI is annoyed. At the start of 2023, Nicolas Lerner, still head of internal intelligence – he now occupies the same position at the DGSE, the external services -, has lunch with a senior official from the Ministry of the Interior. “He explained to me that he no longer had a real flow of information from his Algerian interlocutors, his guest recalls. That even this channel, which usually persists despite the ups and downs of the relationship , didn’t work so much anymore.” Despite its end announced by the Minister of the Interior at the time, Gérald Darmanin, the repercussions of the “visa crisis” are being felt in the world of intelligence.
In September 2021, France decided to restrict the granting of visas to Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria to encourage them to make efforts to combat illegal immigration. This refusal resulted in a reduction in the information provided by the countries concerned, in particular by Algeria. Bad news at a time when the government is feverishly preparing for the Olympic Games. “Intelligence flows on terrorist outbreaks were therefore essential,” continues our interlocutor. “They still are: Beauvau often fears the French decision which would result in the tap being turned off.” The Secret Service eventually spoke out again, but the relief was short-lived. Since the summer of 2024, the Algerian information channel has dried up again. The symptom of a new quarrel, but also of the hardening of the regime. Shaken by riots in June, weakened by a presidential election seen as a foregone conclusion, increasingly isolated internationally, the Algerian executive does not hesitate to use France as a scapegoat. An attitude materialized by manifestations of hostility on various key subjects, not so far from the methods of “hybrid war” that Russia has been waging against Western countries since March 2022.
“Macronito-Zionist France”
Latest episode to date: Boualem Sansal, Franco-Algerian writer, placed in pre-trial detention, accused of a series of “attacks on state security”, since November 21. This arrest adds to a succession of shocks between Paris and Algiers. In a letter sent to King Mohammed VI and made public on July 30, Emmanuel Macron recognizes that “the present and future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.” The same day, Algiers recalled its ambassador to France. The Minister of Foreign Affairs denounces a “step that no other French government before him had thought it necessary to take”. Icy wind on the bilateral relationship. At the end of October, Emmanuel Macron makes an official visit to Morocco, reiterates his position on Western Sahara. On November 16, Boualem Sansal “disappeared” upon his arrival at Algiers airport.
Shock and concern in Paris, while the writer Kamel Daoud, winner of the 2024 Goncourt Prize, is also being prosecuted in Algeria, accused of having appropriated the story told by a patient to his psychiatrist wife in his novel Houris. With Boualem Sansal in prison, the episode goes beyond the disqualification campaign. The Algerian author obtained French nationality this year – a direct request from Emmanuel Macron in Beauvau, L’Express learned from a government source. Paris therefore calls on Algiers about the fate of its national. Response to vitriol from the other side of the Mediterranean. “Macronito-Zionist France […] takes offense at the arrest of Sansal at Algiers airport”, scathes Algeria press service. Incidentally, the country’s public press agency, linked to the regime, makes fun of Emmanuel Macron’s tan after his trip in Brazil, targets “the anti-Algerian and incidentally pro-Zionist directory of Paris”.
“Memorial annuity”
The Elysée has tried to make appeasement gestures. Among others: the delivery to the countries of 24 skulls of resistance fighters decapitated in the 19th century, or the mission entrusted to the historian Benjamin Stora on “the memory of colonization and the Algerian war”. On November 1, Emmanuel Macron also recognized France’s responsibility in the assassination of Algerian nationalist Larbi Ben M’hidi, as he did for those of Ali Boumendjel, Algerian nationalist lawyer, and Maurice Audin. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was due to come on an official visit to Paris in May 2023 – the previous visit by an Algerian leader dating back to that of Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2000. Constantly postponed, then scheduled between the end of September and the beginning of October 2024, she was finally postponed indefinitely by the Algerian head of state in a television interview. In this interview, Abdelmadjid Tebboune describes French colonization as “genocide”, demands compensation for the nuclear tests carried out in Algeria in the 1950s: “You became a nuclear power, and we had diseases.”
A verbal and diplomatic escalation linked to the French position on Western Sahara, on the one hand. But also to the internal political turmoil in Algeria, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune having been re-elected in September with 94.65% of the votes, in a marked election, according to the candidates disappointed with the “irregularities and contradictions in the results announced”. “Algerian power has been hardening since 2020, observes Xavier Driencourt, former French ambassador to Algeria. This is reflected in the closure of newspapers – Radio M and the electronic newspaper Maghreb Emergent in June, for example –, the imprisonment of individuals, but also a deterioration of Franco-Algerian relations.” The current diplomatic crisis is also the third in four years. The first was provoked by Emmanuel Macron’s declarations on the “memorial rent” of the “Algerian politico-military system”. The second, by the reception in France of the opponent Amira Bouraoui, who had illegally left Algeria through Tunisia.
“I love you neither”
“The discussion is constantly played out on who will show their muscles the most, observes Hugues Besancenot, former director of immigration at the general directorate of foreigners in France. The slightest annoyance that Algiers experiences is transformed into administrative hassle for the French who go and work in Algeria.” The sustainability of certain economic exchanges is also called into question by the current crisis. “The Algerian regime is provoking us to test our reactions. Are we capable of responding, of establishing a balance of power with them?” asks Xavier Driencourt.
In recent years, concerns have focused on the migration issue, a source of eternal tensions between Paris and Algiers. The question of visas is particularly at the heart of all concerns, Algerians constituting one of the largest contingents of applications in France. In ten years, the number of annual visas requested by Algerians has tripled, from 200,000 in 2007 to more than 600,000 in 2017. Over the same period, the files accepted by Paris increased from 100,000 to 400,000. , before reaching 128,690 in 2022, according to figures from the immigration department. That year, Algerians were the second nationality to which France granted the most visas, behind Morocco. “Visa refusals contribute to fueling a discourse in Algiers according to which: ‘You see, the French are not giving us any gifts,’ observes Fernand Gontier, former central director of the border police from 2017 to 2022. Each French decision is interpreted as a sign of weakness, or arrogance Our relationship is an ‘I love you neither’ totally polluted by our past.
Investigations slowed down
On the other side of the Mediterranean, Paris is encountering difficulties in obtaining consular passes from Algiers, the necessary keys to fulfilling the obligations to leave French territory (OQTF). According to a report from the Court of Auditors dating from January 202458,700 OQTFs were decided by the prefectures for Algerian nationals between 2019 and 2022. Only 2,600 were implemented, with a severe slowdown since the pandemic. “The Algerian Ministry of the Interior is subservient to that of Foreign Affairs, which implies that immigration issues are totally conditioned by the diplomatic relationship between our two countries,” observes Fernand Gontier.
Even in periods of relaxation, he remembers slow investigations. “Our police officers could not work directly with their counterparts. Everything had to go through the central level of the Algerian ministry which, often, did not respond to our requests for information in the context of investigations,” he continues. The executive had to get involved to put oil in the machine. In 2018, France negotiated for several months to expel to Algeria the jihadist Djamel Beghal, convicted in particular as a terrorist criminal association.. In some cases, Emmanuel Macron himself had to telephone his counterpart to obtain consular passes in similar cases. This summer’s crisis has so far not had a significant effect on the issuance of consular passes, although the number of forced returns to Algeria is not considered satisfactory in Beauvau.
Unease in Beauvau
Concerned about “not throwing fuel on the fire” – in the words of a senior Interior official – so as not to weaken cooperation, France often chooses not to take note of certain Algerian reactions. In June 2023, declarations from the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs made Paris cringe. In the wake of the riots following the death of Nahel, a teenager killed after refusing to comply during a police check, Algiers did not fail to express its “shock” and its “dismay”. Worrying about the “particularly disturbing and worrying circumstances” which led to the death of the young man of Algerian origin – but born in Nanterre. A “provocation”, a source close to the executive is still annoyed today.
Another subject of vexation: in May 2024, on the eve of the European elections, the reception of Rima Hassan at the Grand Mosque of Paris (GMP) was poorly received by the French Ministry of the Interior. The exchange between rector Chems-eddine Hafiz and the woman who was not yet a MEP from La France insoumise, founder of the Action Palestine France collective, was reported in an enthusiastic press release, concluded with the slogan “Palestine Gaza Solidarity”. Unease in Beauvau, where we perceive in this reception a position taken by its main patron – the GMP depends largely on Algerian liquidity -, the Palestinian cause being taken to the highest level of the State. “It was undoubtedly a rebalancing in his communication, the rector having appeared alongside the great rabbi Haïm Korsia after the attack of October 7. But we had not even been made aware of this reception “, confides someone close to Gérald Darmanin. Or the art of handling diplomatic heat and cold.