Since 2022, Xavier Driencourt has continued to hammer the same message: you have to be harder with Algeria, repeats … The ex-ambassador of France in Algiers, for seven years. At a time when Emmanuel Macron seems to raise his tone against the regime of Abdelmadjid Tebboune and his refusal to accept on his territory the nationals that Paris wishes to keep away, the diplomat says he is perplexed.
Even if the President of the Republic posted new intentions, in a letter to Prime Minister François Bayrou, revealed by Le Figarothe retiree from the Quai d’Orsay sees it especially “half-measures”. Interview.
L’Express: Is Emmanuel Macron’s letter to François Bayrou constitutes a turning point in the recent diplomatic relationship between Paris and Algiers?
Xavier Driencourt : No, it is at best an inflection, but it would be wrong to call it a turnaround. There are three things in this letter. First general considerations, admonitions or somewhat hollow formulas, such as “I therefore want us to find the way to demanding, serious and productive cooperation”. There are concrete measures, in reality quite weak. The restoration of visas for the stays of dignitaries, but the agreement had already been suspended since May. The approval given to eight consuls is not trivial but not fundamental. The non-removal of long-stay visas, for example for students or sick people, it can annoy Algerians, but it is not a major issue either. And then there are the waves of the end.
Where it is a question of both French requests, on the reimbursement of the hospital debt of Algeria, and of colonial liabilities, with the evocation in particular of nuclear tests in the Sahara. How to understand this passage?
The formulation is ambiguous. It feels like the general idea is: “You will deprive yourself of a number of cookies”. It is a kind of threat to the future, it suggests the idea of a graduated response, which is interesting, but it is very vague.
Does this change of intention on the French side mean that the executive has mourned the release of Boualem Sansal and Christophe Gleizes?
Maybe. In any case, do not expect them to be released in the coming weeks. It is true, this letter marks the awareness that the approach of appeasement vis-à-vis Algeria does not lead to any concrete result. And Emmanuel Macron acknowledges that Algiers’ policy vis-à-vis their illegal immigrants, which they often refuse to resume, is diplomatically unacceptable. This letter is therefore a marked point for Bruno Retailleau, and a stone in the garden of Jean-Noël Barrot and the Quai d’Orsay, supporters of dialogue and appeasement. But in reality, we know that Barrot does what the Elysée asks him. To be exact, it must be said that Emmanuel Macron decided in favor of Retailleau … against what previously professed Macron himself. But without going to the end of the logic.
What measures seem to be missing to really weigh on Algerian diplomacy?
Even if it means getting angry, Emmanuel Macron could have chosen the strong way and total reciprocity. It could obviously have been a question of denouncing the 1968 agreement, which gives Algerians favorable conditions to settle in France. We could also close consulates. There are three consulates from France in Algeria and eighteen consulates in Algeria in France. There could be three on each side. In addition, the trips of the French ambassador to Algeria are controlled by the executive, it is necessary to request an authorization to leave Algiers. Why not ask for the same thing in France?
Emmanuel Macron evokes in his letter the cooperation of other European countries. What is it?
From a major limit to any counter-measure! France wants to refuse visas requested by the Algerians, but all of this has no effect if they ask to join Italy or Spain, then take a train for Paris. The rules of the Schengen space allow it materially, even if, in theory, it is contrary to the principle. So if our neighbors do not opt for the same policy, it will have been useless. And we can imagine what interest can have Italy, for example, to replace us with Algeria.
How do you analyze the Algerian response this Thursday, August 7, via a press release from the Algeria Press Service agency?
It is an arm of honor. Their response is sententious, learned, lessons. They are right on everything, France is wrong on everything. It is the truth according to Algiers, but ‘the truth if I lie’. This letter will still put President Tebboune in a delicate political position. It is a disavowal since for months, he explained that it was necessary to bet on the Macron camp, the “good”, against the “bad”, the retaille camp, the “nostalgic colonization”. He was wrong since Macron joins Retailleau in the analysis.
Are we going towards a break in diplomatic relations between the two countries?
The crisis could remain up to 2027 until the scheme change in France. Without going as far as a total rupture of diplomatic relations, one could imagine a rupture of consular relations, or a quasi-row. A consul on each side, in Paris, in Algiers, which would make travel between the two countries more complicated.
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