“We have no choice but to adopt an approach of greater firmness” with Algeria writes Emmanuel Macron in a letter addressed to the Prime Minister. In his letter, the President of the Republic instructs the government to “make additional decisions” to “act with more firmness and determination”. Through this decision, the Head of State operates a turning point in his relationship with Algeria. Main consequence of this letter, France will suspend the 2013 agreement on the exemption from visa for holders of Algerian diplomatic passports. He also requests the activation of the “visa-feeding lever” provided for by the law of January 2024, making it possible to “refuse short stay visas to passport and diplomatic passport holders, as are long-stay visas for all types of applicants”, to strengthen pressure on Algiers in matters of “migration cooperation”.
Algiers’ response was not long overdue and Algerian leaders called on France not to be exempt from its responsibility in the bilateral crisis before expressing its desire to repeal the visa exemption agreement for diplomatic passports with Paris. In response, François Bayrou assured that France was trying to find “balanced and just” relationships.
The relationship between the two countries has largely deteriorated in recent months due to the recognition by France of Morocco’s sovereignty on Western Sahara and the arrest and detention of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal and journalist Christophe Gleizes. Incarcerated since November 2024, the writer was sentenced, in July 2025, to five years’ imprisonment.
Engage a balance of power
With this letter, Emmanuel Macron seems to act the failure of the diplomatic path through which the Quai d’Orsay wanted to obtain the release of the two French nationals. French diplomacy had sought to spare the Algerian power hoping to obtain, for the prisoners, a presidential grace on the occasion of the national holiday, on July 5. “The strategy that has been improperly called diplomatic strategy failed. We did not obtain any results, the more France reached out and the more Algeria hardened the tone, “deplores Arnaud Benedetti, member of the support committee for Boualem Sansal and editor of the political and parliamentary review that founded the support committee.
For the support of Boualem Sansal, a hardening of relations with Algeria and the affirmation of a balance of power are necessary to obtain the release of the writer. “It is a position of firmness that has been expected for a long time and that goes in the right direction. The opponents of the regime themselves consider that only a calculated and rational balance of power would allow the situation to be released, ”says Arnaud Benedetti.
A position defended by Bruno Retailleau
By touching on the 2013 agreement and therefore the possibility for holders of an Algerian diplomatic passport to go to France without a visa, Emmanuel Macron hardens the balance of power with Algiers. A position defended for several months by the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau. “The Algerian regime benefits from a certain number of fairly derogatory measures, it does not go so far as to speak of the 1968 agreements, but clearly it confirms a measure which has been pushed by the Minister of the Interior for several months,” notes Arnaud Benedetti.
The Franco-Algerian agreement of 1968 Apply specific immigration rules to Algerian nationals. If the Head of State does not mention this agreement in the letter, this treaty has often been targeted by part of the political class as a means of pressure to be used in the event of tensions with Algeria. A tool that could be mobilized later, because in addition to the release of Christophe Gleizes and Boualem Sansal, the President of the Republic asks Algeria to resume the issuance of the consular pass. Indeed, Algeria regularly blocks the readmission of some of its nationals which are the subject of measures to distance French territory. For this, Emmanuel Macron instructs the Minister of the Interior to “find the ways and means of useful cooperation as quickly as possible with his Algerian counterpart”.
Mobilize European countries
In addition, the President of the Republic seeks to associate the member states of the European Union and the Schengen space. As such, the Head of State asks Bruno Retailleau to obtain “our partners Schengen that they take the measures essential to the effectiveness of our decisions, especially the consultation of France for the issuance of short stay visas for the Algerian officials in question and the passports referred to by this agreement”.
“We consider that the European lever is an extremely important lever,” says Arnaud Benedetti while Algeria wishes to renegotiate its association agreement with the European Union. So many levers which should allow according to the Elysée to reconnect with Algeria. A renewed dialogue which must make it possible to address several subjects such as that of the hospital debt of Algerian nationals or the “carried out of certain services of the Algerian State on the national territory” (a reference to the attempt to remove the influencer Amir Dz, opposing the regime). The Elysée also specifies that a new cooperation between the two countries would be an opportunity to deal with “the unanswered memorial questions, on the basis of the proposals of the mixed commission of historians, and in particular the question of restitutions or sites of French nuclear tests in Algeria”.
