The Algerian government has expelled twelve French Consular staff members from the country. This has escalated tensions and put paid to hopes of any reconciliation between Algeria and France. This diplomatic tiff began when charges were filled in France on Friday against an Algerian consular official, accused with two other Algerians of having participated in the kidnapping of an opposition dissident in the Paris suburbs a year ago. However, in this row between the two countries it is not French President Emmanuel Macron that is the main target of Algiers’s resentment but rather his Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau.
Retailleau – a right-wing conservative with ambitions for the next presidential election in France – has won a reputation for his hardline pronouncements on immigration, law and order, and relations with Algeria. Algiers is claiming to see the hand of Retailleau in the arrest of its consular official. It is implicitly accusing the interior minister of trying to undermine Macron’s more “even-handed” approach to the crisis in relations. Significantly, several of the 12 officials ordered out are from the French interior ministry – and thus subordinates of Retailleau. Algerian commentators regularly attack the French right and far-right for having undue influence in Paris, and for trying to poison relations.
But they have recently become more indulgent towards Macron, even though it was him who personally precipitated the crisis last July by declaring a strategic shift towards Algeria’s long-standing rival Morocco.
Algeria may be using the current diplomatic impasse with France to oust Retailleau from Macron’s government. Algeria is rich in oil and arguably currently one of the two most stable North African countries -more or less – apart from Morocco. Paris needs Algiers to provide a steady flow of fuel and other trading minerals to its ports across the Mediterranean Sae. However, a significant problem is also the free flow of migrants from Algeria to Europe through France. Retailleau has not been diplomatic towards Algeria concerning this situation and this is where the relationship between the former colonial power and the colonized has soured. Algeria also has a sour relationship with Morocco, due to its support of the Western Sahara as the Sarawi Arab Democratic Republic.
Rabat has claimed the territory as part of its original borders before colonization. The Polisaro Front backed by Algiers claims to be fighting for Western Sahara’s independence. France the old colonial power (again) wants a peaceful solution to the dispute determined by Western Sahara’s people.
Meanwhile as the diplomatic tiff between Algeria and France deepens new details will come to light.
Three men, including the Algerian consular official, were being investigated Friday over abduction, arbitrary detention, and illegal confinement, in connection with a terrorist enterprise, as well as other crimes, according to French prosecutors. Amir Boukhors, known online as “Amir DZ,” is a popular TikTok influencer with over a million followers, and a vocal critic of the Algerian government. The influencer had been in France since 2016 and was granted political asylum in 2023. According to his lawyer, he was abducted in April 2024 and released the next day. Algeria labeled him a “saboteur linked to terrorist groups.” Algeria denounced the move as politically motivated and called for the immediate release of its consular office.
The kidnapping of Amir Boukhors by Algerian diplomatic and intelligence services in France has led to a bitter row between Paris and Algiers that could see the two regional powers regroup. The arrest of the as yet unnamed consular official and his two fellow countrymen could be the starting point for a new realignment of power relations in the Mediterranean region between Europe and North Africa. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and his regime may search for new alternatives for trading partners to the French. Algeria is still largely an authoritarian nation with the result that critics of the government will seek asylum abroad. The fleeing of economic migrants and refugees from across war torn Africa through Algeria remains a problem.
As future events unfold, we will have to see how France and Algeria reconsider their positions. Even Morocco could be drawn into the mix.
Article written by:
Yacoob Cassim
Journalist at Radio Al Ansaar
