Hardly had the French president Emmanuel Macron aired his optimism about the potential improvement of France’s relations with Algeria, its former colony, when disaster struck. Algeria has announced the expulsion of 12 French diplomats. And even though the political clout of the two sides seems incomparable, Paris effectively has nothing to counter it with. Why?
France and Algeria have been locked in what is a knotty and tumultuous relationship for a while now. To begin with, for years Algeria was a French colony. The overseas domination was shaken off at the cost of a long and deadly war. What followed, however, was typical of a hangover from even the ugliest of divorces. Legally separated, both sides suddenly realised they needed each other.
Algeria failed to perform up to the standard of living once provided by the French. France, on the other hand, was in need of a cheap workforce, a nuclear testing site and whatnot. To be fair, the nuclear programme was soon scrapped, but the Algerian government now had leverage to counter any accusations levelled by the French by reminding them of their both colonial and nuclear past. The aftermath of the tests has taken a grim toll on the country and it cannot fully recover to this day.
France, in turn, was milking every opportunity to torch Algeria over its failure to commit to the democratic values and its authoritarian governance style. Besides, the French government was unhappy about Algeria pallying up with countries the French were beefing with. On the positive side, though, the former metropole and the ex-colony did maintain some sort of a relationship and even cooperated for a while.
The Algerian authorities did not mind its citizens leaving for France. The working conditions and accommodation were largely facilitated by the 1968 accords. Occasionally France would threaten to rescind the agreement, citing a high rate of crimes and even terror attacks involving the Algerians. The latest in a series of violent outbursts was the grisly tragedy that took place in Mulhouse in February where an Algerian-born Islamist launched a knife attack on the crowd, leaving one person dead and six injured.
The French were particularly outraged by the perpetrator being an illegal alien who was to have been deported long ago. But Algeria, whose authorities apparently knew about the guy’s background, flatly refused to let him back in. But it was not a one-off incident. When it comes to deportations, Algeria scrutinises every single case and, if it senses trouble, it denies an opportunity to accept their own nationals back home. The French authorities have yet to force their Algerian counterparts to reconsider any of the decisions. The same was true of the Mulhouse rampager.
However, the Mulhouse attack was just one out of many reasons behind the unfolding diplomatic showdown. Historically, Algeria has been at loggerheads with its neighbour, the Kingdom of Morocco. A major issue that spurred the falling-out is the disputed Western Sahara territory. Algeria is advocating for its independence while Morocco seeks to incorporate it. In July 2024, President Macron publicly sided with the Moroccans, which led to Algeria withdrawing its ambassador to France in a show of protest. The intergovernmental relations have been souring ever since.
The arrest of the famous writer Boualem Sansal did little to improve things too. The author holds both the French and the Algerian citizenships; he writes in French. At 75 years of age, he is reportedly battling cancer. Yet these mitigating circumstances did not prevent the Algerian authorities from arresting him in November over the alleged encroachment on state security. What he did was give an interview where he upheld the Moroccan narrative that holds that being the metropole for both Algeria and Morocco, France was redrawing the Moroccan lands in favour of Algeria.
Under Article 87 of the Algerian Penal Code, Sansal challenged the country’s territorial integrity. But to reiterate, the writer is a French citizen as well. Sure enough, Paris jumped at the opportunity to stand up for the arrested Sansal, except it went horribly wrong. A fervent lover of the trademark French style of rhetoric, President Macron berated Algeria as a country ‘covering itself in disgrace’ and added, ‘I demand the immediate release of Boualem Sansal by the [Algerian] government.’ The swift response was that the French leader’s comments amounted to ‘interference in Algeria’s domestic affairs’. The authorities also cited the law under which the writer had already been sentenced to a five-year prison term.
Nonetheless in the wake of the late March meeting between Emmanuel Macron and President Abdelmadjid Tebboune of Algeria, the former sounded rather optimistic and hinted at the potential release of Sansal. But that is when the French law enforcement threw their own president under the bus as on 11 April, it arrested three Algerian nationals over an alleged abduction of Amir Boukhors, an investigative blogger better known by his social media handle, Amir DZ.
The probe has been ongoing since April 2024. Amir’s online presence portrayed him as an independent journalist and the ruling regime’s critic. Down in Algeria, Boukhors was charged with a laundry list of violations, including blackmail, fraud and even terrorism. They requested that the French authorities extradite him, but a court in Paris dismissed the demand, claiming the journalist would not have the right to a fair trial in Algeria.
On 29 April 2024, Amir was kidnapped outside his residence, driven to an unknown place and drugged. The abductors threatened him before dumping him in a forest. He survived the attack, but the French justice system treats kidnappings very harshly. The defence attorney alleged that the Algerian authorities might be involved. It then took almost a year for the French police to arrest three Algerians, one of whom was an Algerian embassy employee in France.
Predictably the Algerian foreign ministry hit back stating that the incident would ‘cause enormous damage to the Algeria–France relations’ and vowing to ‘make sure there will be consequences’. In response, the French authorities maintained that their home country boasted an independent judiciary. But sure enough, hot on the heels of Marine LePen’s sentencing with a five-year ban on standing for office, this statement can be contested, to say the least.
The ‘consequences’ announced are now clear. Algeria chose to expel 12 French diplomats. The ball is now in France’s court. Paris may either let them again get away with an insult or repay them in kind, which will almost inevitably escalate the tensions even further.
Following the late February Mulhouse attack, PM François Bayrou proposed revisiting the 1968 accords ‘within a month or a month and a half’ and withdrawing from them. It is unclear, though, why the French are dithering again given Algeria’s obvious reluctance to change tack. Everybody knows that exhaling a load of hot air will be anything but helpful to the French cause.
Meanwhile, the Algerian issue has stirred a domestic furore in France. The diplomatic expulsion story garnered over 1,000 comments on the Le Figaro website. Many slammed the government over its lack of resolve and its willingness to talk instead of taking action. In addition, we can now see what ordinary French people are mostly concerned about.
‘I’m hearing daily news about the country whose double-passported citizens are growing in numbers around here. They are taking away more power while threatening us,’ one comment reads. ‘We are expecting nothing from the country that is hard at work criticising and hating France,’ says an incandescent poster. Finally, another missive laments the whole thing by saying: ‘It’s high time we closed the chapter of the tragic relations with the territory we should’ve never seized in the first place.’
The latter comment is actually something the Algerian authorities may eagerly agree with. But the French did it, and it cannot be undone. President Tebboune thinks he has a right to invoke it and treat the French government the way he deems well-deserved. Worse yet, there is nothing Macron can really do to fight back.
This whole mess has one person truly worthy of empathy, the ailing old writer who fell victim to political bad blood. The release of Sansal is unlikely to happen in the coming months. As for the France–Algeria relationship, it will only carry on deteriorating. But rest assured the French president will get an opportunity to launch into a myriad of diatribes on the ‘disgrace’ of the countries he does not fancy. But is he really in any position to utter any of this?