President Tebboune: “Algerian-French relations are fluctuating, evolving unevenly at certain periods,” here are details!
By: Hana Saada
ALGIERS- “Algerian-French relations are fluctuating and “have been evolving unevenly at certain periods,” President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, told Al Jazeera.
Speaking to the Qatari news channel Al Jazeera in an interview broadcast on Tuesday night, President Tebboune said relations with Paris are “fluctuating” and “have been evolving unevenly at certain periods,” but confirmed that the Algerian ambassador will return to France within days after he was summoned for consultations weeks ago.
While everything was going better between France and Algeria, the exfiltration of Amira Bouraoui from Tunis to Paris once again weakened relations between the two countries. France’s Emmanuel Macron went to Algeria at the end of last summer. He had left North Africa after having jointly signed with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune a declaration to revive relations between the two countries. However, a new episode of tense relations between Algeria and France sparked as French diplomats and security personnel at the French embassy in Tunis secretly and illegally exfiltrated Amira Bouraoui, despite the existence of an Algerian court subpoena against her.
The French goons went too far, and their insolence exceeded the limits of description, after the attribution of the title “the journalist” to Amira Bouraoui and her invitation to the public TV channels to “express herself” in a failed attempt to legitimize the crime they committed, namely; her exfiltration from Tunisia to France.
France resorted to the policy of double standards, as it took unilateral decisions that do not respect the sovereignty of the Algerian justice and state, criticizing and applying laws with discrimination and favoritism.
As a reaction, French President Emmanuel Macron, on his part, tackled, on Monday, February 27 during a speech devoted to his country’s African policy, Amira Bouraoui affair, claiming to have taken “a firedamp blow”.
“There was a controversy over the return to France of a Franco-Algerian from Tunisia, with also a lot of things that were told and a speech that was built”, nuanced President Macron. A posture that shows the embarrassment of the head of state, who did not even dare to pronounce the name of Amira Bouraoui.
“I think there are a lot of people who have an interest in what we have been doing for years now with Algeria not succeeding,” Macron argues without giving further details.
“Well I have a very simple message: I will continue, this is not the first firedamp, I have already had it but we must continue there also humbly, pragmatically,” he said.
Noting that ties between the two countries had been frosty since autumn 2021, but warmed when Macron visited Algiers last August.
They witnessed unprecedented tensions after the provocative and irresponsible statements uttered by the Elysee Palace inmate Emmanuel Macron, who questioned the existence of an Algerian nation before the brutal French occupation of Algeria in 1830.
In his gaffe, France’s President Emmanuel Macron made critical remarks about Algeria, during a meeting with descendants of Harkis (people who fought with the French army against Algerian revolutionists).
Macron’s comments sparked anger among the Algerian officials and people. The Algerian Presidency of the Republic, which announced that it had summoned Algeria’s ambassador to Paris, Mohamed Antar Daoud, for consultations, took a second decision to close Algerian airspace to the French military warplanes, in response to these irresponsible and provocative statements by the French President Emmanuel Macron.
