Tensions are rising between Paris and Algiers. The current diplomatic crisis, described by analysts as the most serious since Algeria's independence in 1962, raises the risk of a rupture in bilateral relations between France and its former North African colony.
The current quarrel was triggered in July 2024 by French President Emmanuel Macron's support for Morocco's claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara. The resource-rich territory, considered by the UN as "non-autonomous", is controlled for the most part by Morocco but claimed by the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi independence movement supported by Algeria. The move infuriated Algiers, which announced the "withdrawal with immediate effect" of its ambassador to France.
Relations have deteriorated ever since, first with the incarceration of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal in Algiers in mid-November, who was accused of having undermined the integrity of Algerian territory in statements made to a far-right media outlet in France.
This was followed by the January arrests of Algerian influencers in France accused of calling for violence, and compounded by Algiers blocking the deportation of its nationals from France.
In early March, the situation worsened after a knife attack, which injured three police officers and cost the life of a passerby in Mulhouse in eastern France, by an Algerian whom the French authorities had tried to deport back to his country 14 times in vain.
Following the attack, French Prime Minister François Bayrou set an ultimatum. He gave Algiers "one month to six weeks" to accept the readmission of its nationals staying illegally in France who had been handed deportation orders. Otherwise, the head of government threatened, Algeria would expose itself to "a graduated response".
This could range from the calling into question of visa-free travel for Algerian diplomats to the termination of the 1968 bilateral agreement which grants, according to Paris, "considerable advantages" to Algerians in terms of entry and residence in France.
‘Back to the time of the colonies’
France also accuses Algeria of blacklisting French companies bidding for public contracts, replacing French with English in primary education, reintroducing a stanza that calls out France by name in its national anthem and blocking cooperation in matters of security.
At the helm of the recent escalation is French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who advocates for a very firm approach to the fight against immigration. Since taking office in September, he has made numerous hostile statements against Algeria as well as calls to toughen the "balance of power" on issues that divide the two countries.
"Should France bow its head?" Retailleau said after the Mulhouse attack. "No pain in history gives a license to offend France," he added, in reference to the 132-year-old colonial era, the memory of which is still a great source of tension.
For historian Benjamin Stora, a leading specialist in French colonization and the Algerian war of independence, the current crisis reflects a persistence of the memory problem linked to this difficult past. "In France at the moment there is an obsession with Algeria, with a kind of daily repetition of grievances," he told Middle East Eye.
According to him, this "terrible obsession", fueled both by political leaders and media outlets close to the far right, "summons a kind of colonial unconscious".
The notion implies that the people who experienced colonization - whether colonizers or colonized - have internalized the power relations typical of the colonial period. As if Algeria were still a French colony and should submit to the dictates of Paris. Stora's opinion is widely shared in Algeria.
Former Algerian diplomat and minister of culture and communication, Abdelaziz Rahabi, declared that some have "the feeling that we are back to the time of the colonies".
In February, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune denounced the "deleterious climate" between the two countries and urged his French counterpart to "make his voice heard" to end the conflict.
Macron was slow to react, pulling his ministers back into line two weeks ago and hammering home his desire to "engage in a demanding and respectful dialogue" with Algiers. But no tangible improvement has been seen since. Before Paris' shift on Western Sahara, the two heads of state got along rather well.
The French president made a spectacular rapprochement with Algiers during an official visit in the summer of 2022, which was marked by an all-out restart of the bilateral relationship and the launch of a joint commission of historians to work on the difficult memorial issue.
The first French head of state to be born after Algeria's independence, Macron had earlier made an impression in February 2017 when, as a presidential candidate, he described colonisation as a "crime against humanity".
Electoral instrumentalization
In Algeria, the crisis is seen essentially as the result of the rightward shift of the French political class, which has favoured antagonistic positions towards the North African country. The Algerian authorities accuse extremist currents in France of mistreating bilateral relations to satisfy electoral issues.
In a press release published following the February 25 announcement by Paris of measures restricting access to France for some Algerian dignitaries, Algiers denounced the role of the right and far right in French-Algerian relations.
"Algeria has clearly become the subject of intra-French political quarrels where all self-serving low blows are allowed in the context of a competition in which the far right is the instigator, the point of contact and the ordering institution," the foreign ministry communique stated.
Many observers in both countries also explain this latest crisis as linked to French domestic politics. "It is here, at the heart of purely electoral issues, that the balance of power around the Algerian issue is being exercised," Zoheir Rouis, vice president of the Algerian centre-left party Jil Jadid, told MEE.
"This issue is the hostage of an internal electioneering campaign in view of the next presidential election which will take place in three years," he said.
According to Rouis, the French interior minister seeks to woo the far right's electoral stronghold by exploiting its hostility to the former North African colony.
The far-right National Rally (RN), which is currently the leading political party in terms of seats in the French parliament, accuses Retailleau of not doing enough to confront Algeria and limiting himself to ineffective statements. Retailleau replied that the RN saw him as a competitor who could deprive the party of its electoral base. "A collapse of the French political class has brought to the forefront a host of people without imagination or plans, who defend extremist ideas in an attempt to exist," Rouis told MEE.
‘Incalculable consequences’
According to Farida Souiah, professor of social sciences at a business school in the city of Lyon, this instrumentalisation of the current crisis is at the root of its seriousness. "There have been tensions since the 1970s, particularly after Algeria's nationalisation of hydrocarbons, but what is special today is the duration and accumulation of episodes of crisis since July 2024," she told MEE.
While the Algerian leadership is accused of using the crisis to distract from internal problems and strengthen national cohesion, "in France, migration issues are seen as useful for winning the vote of the right and the far right," Souiah said. To this end, many untruths are told on the subject, she added.
"We talk a lot about the non-implementation of OQTFs [obligation to leave French territory, or deportation orders] but we don't say that Algerians represent one of the first nationalities to be effectively removed from France."
According to a French interior ministry report, Algerians were at the top of the list of people deported from France in 2024, with 2,999 deportations carried out, an increase of more than 17 percent compared to 2023. Moreover, according to Souiah, the 1968 agreements are brandished by the right and the far right as a concession to Algeria while various amendments introduced since their signing have greatly weakened them.
In a column in Le Monde newspaper in January, Hocine Zeghbib, honorary lecturer in public law, explained that this treaty, established after Algeria's independence to facilitate the movement of people between the two countries, has not had much impact on Algerian immigration to France, especially after the end of labour immigration in the 1970s and the implementation of a visa policy a decade later.
For Souiah, beyond the migration issue, it is the persistence of the memorial dispute over colonisation that explains why French-Algerian relations are so complicated. "In Algeria, the relationship with France is placed in a national narrative that has a very strong rhetoric on the issue of [French] interference," she said.
And the North African country is not in the habit of yielding to "coups de force" or ultimatums imposed by the former colonial power, she added. With each side sticking to their guns, the breakdown of relations is a very likely possibility, according to observers.
The press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Algiers warned of "incalculable consequences on the Algerian-French relationship in all its dimensions". France has arguably the most to lose, for several reasons.
First of all is energy. Along with Italy, Spain and Germany, the country is one of the largest buyers of Algerian gas.
The repercussions could also be economic, as around 450 French companies are established in Algeria, which is the second largest African market for French exports. The costs could be lower for Algeria, which has worked in recent years to diversify its economic partners.
On the security front, Algeria is an important partner for France in sharing intelligence and combating instability in the Sahel region in Africa, where the rise of armed groups linked to the Islamic State group is worrying experts.
The deterioration in bilateral relations has also already seriously affected the work of memorial reconciliation between the two countries. Stora, who issued around 30 recommendations to make progress on this issue in 2021 in a report commissioned by Macron, is concerned about the repercussions of the current spat in this field.
"After five meetings, the historians' commission has frozen its work," he told MEE. The rupture could also have a heavy human cost, particularly due to a possible renegotiation or termination of the 1968 migration deal, the historian stressed. "Hundreds of thousands of people who have ties on both sides of the Mediterranean risk being impacted by the crisis," Stora said.
On Friday, a group of dual nationals, including public figures, wrote an op-ed in Le Monde warning that in French public debate a discourse is developing that "normalises the idea that some French people must constantly prove their belonging, while others are the natural guardians of it.
"The controversies surrounding immigration, secularism and national identity constantly remind us that our presence is disturbing, that our names, our faces, our traditions are perceived as cracks in the country's unity."
