Algeria’s decision to expel 12 French consular staff members appears to have put paid to hopes of any imminent rapprochement between the two countries.
The order was in response to charges filed in France on Friday against an Algerian consular official, accused with two other Algerians of taking part in the kidnap of an opposition dissident in the Paris suburbs a year ago.
Algiers chose to see the arrest of the official as “a flagrant contravention of the immunities and privileges that attach to his (diplomatic) functions”.
According to the official Algerian state-run news agency APS: “This unprecedented judicial incident… has not come about by chance. Its purpose is to scupper the relaunch of bilateral relations agreed by the two heads of state.”
A phone call between French President Emmanuel Macron and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune at the end of March was a first sign of a possible reconciliation after months of crisis.
Since then there was a visit to Algiers a week ago by Jean-Noël Barrot, Macron’s foreign minister, which appeared to confirm a willingness on both sides to turn the page.
But this dramatic escalation – the biggest expulsion of French consular staff since Algerian independence in 1962 – suggests that anti-French voices are still very much in the ascendant in Algiers’ government circles.
Reading between the lines, it is evident the real target of Algerian fire is not Macron but elements in his government – most notably Interior Minister 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.
Since then the breakdown in relations has been the worst since Algerian independence.
Trade and intelligence-sharing have suffered and bitter words have been exchanged over anti-French Algerian internet influencers.
France has accused Algeria of refusing to take back deported nationals and Algeria has accused France of harassment of its diplomats.
The most egregious sign of the breakdown was the arrest in November of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal at Algiers airport.
Aged 80 and suffering from cancer, he has since been sentenced to five years in jail for crimes against state security.
Before the latest development, hopes were being expressed in Paris that Sansal might soon be released in a “humanitarian gesture” by Tebboune.
Those hopes have now dimmed.