Algeria expels French officials in worsening diplomatic spat

Telegraph

14-04-2025

Algeria has ordered 12 French embassy officials to leave the country within 48 hours as relations between France and its former colony worsen.
Jean-Noel Barrot, the French foreign minister, criticised the move as a tit-for-tat measure in response to the arrests of three Algerian nationals in France who are accused of abducting an Algerian government critic last year.
For decades, ties between France and Algeria have gone through diplomatic upheavals, with Monday's announcement coming at a delicate time and underscoring the difficulties in repairing ties.
'I am asking Algerian authorities to abandon these expulsion measures. If the decision to send back our officials is maintained, we will have no other choice but to respond immediately,' said Mr Barro t.
On Friday, French prosecutors indicted three Algerians, including a consular official, on suspicion of involvement in the April 2024 abduction of Amir Boukhors, an Algerian influencer, in a Paris suburb. The men, who are also being prosecuted for 'terrorist' conspiracy, were placed in pre-trial detention.
Algiers claimed the move was aimed at scuppering recent attempts to repair diplomatic relations.
Mr Boukhors, known as 'Amir DZ', is an opponent of the Algerian government and has more than a million followers on TikTok.
He has been in France since 2016 and was granted political asylum in 2023. He was abducted in April 2024 and released the following day, according to his lawyer.
Algiers is demanding the influencer's return to face trial, having issued nine international arrest warrants against him on accusations of fraud and 'terror' offences. France has refused to extradite him.
On Saturday, the Algerian foreign ministry denounced 'rotten arguments' by the French interior ministry and criticised an 'unacceptable judicial conspiracy', referring to the arrest of its consular agent.
France-Algeria relations have been sour for decades but took a recent turn for the worse after Emmanuel Macron recognised Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, where Algeria has long backed the pro-independence Polisario Front.
Relations soured further when Algeria arrested the French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal in November on national security charges, after he told a French hard-Right media outlet that Morocco's territory was truncated in favour of Algeria during French colonial rule.
In March, an Algerian court sentenced him to five years in jail.
Since then, Algerian authorities have enraged France's hardline interior minister Bruno Retailleau by refusing to take back nationals who have been ordered to leave the country. Mr Retailleau, who is vying to become leader of the opposition Right-wing Republicans party, then called for France to review its visa arrangements with Algeria.
In February, France's centrist prime minister François Bayrou threatened to 'denounce' a 1968 agreement that gives Algerians in France special status in terms of movement, residence and employment, unless Algeria did not take back its illegal nationals within six weeks.
With relations wearing thin to the point of a diplomatic breakdown, Mr Macron stepped in and sent the French foreign minister to Algiers to mend fences.
After a meeting with Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the Algerian President, during the visit, Mr Barrot said both countries wanted to 'rebuild a partnership of equals'.
'Return to an easing of tensions'
The spat sparked criticism from the opposition French Right with Jordan Bardella, head of the National Rally party saying the latest tensions proved that the government's 'prostrations' in Algeria had come to nought.
'Brilliant results of Emmanuel Macron's strategy of appeasement,' he wrote on X.
' Algeria is leading us down the garden path,' said party colleague Sébastien Chenu.
Despite the friction, French diplomatic sources said that 'contacts are being maintained' and that Paris would like to 'return to an easing of tensions' with Algeria.
France and Algeria fought a bloody war from 1954-1962 that led to independence and the conflict has left deep scars in both countries.
Historians from both sides have over the last years documented numerous violations including arbitrary killings and detention carried out by French forces.
In a sign that memories are still raw, a prominent French journalist last month stepped down from his role as an expert analyst for broadcaster RTL; Jean-Michel Aphatie provoked an uproar by comparing French actions during colonial rule in Algeria to the worst massacre committed by Nazi forces in occupied France.
The veteran reporter and broadcaster later acknowledged his comments had created a 'debate' but said it was of great importance to understand the full story over France's 1830-1962 presence in Algeria, saying he was 'horrified' by what he had read in history books.
In France, critics accuse Algeria's military leaders of maintaining their grip on power via a 'rente mémorielle', a perpetual exploitation of French colonial rule.