220 Thousand Algerians Bid Farewell To Endless Queues At Marseille Consulate

The ordeal of more than 220 thousand Algerians residing in the Departmental jurisdiction of the Marseille Consulate south of France has finally wound up with the long queues and the quarrels for documents and passports now being a thing of the past, after the opening of new headquarters wider and broader than the former tight premises, especially as the latter had brought some judicial troubles for Algeria with officials of Marseille province.

Sources who attended the inauguration ceremony of the new headquarters of the Consulate of Algeria in Marseille told “Echorouk” that the new headquarters will help eliminate the endless queues and scuffles that characterized the former headquarters which were gripped as a result by chaos, thus steeping the Consulate personnel into lingering problems with officials of Marseille province

They added that the new Consular headquarters stretch over an area of 3,200 square meters and are endowed with all the proper amenities, thus making the Algerians settled in Marseille now forget the turmoil that characterized the previous phase, especially in the light of the inauguration of a new Consular staff (General Consul).

During the ceremony, state and foreign affairs minister Ramtane Lamamra told the Consular officials, led by the new General Consul Boujemaa Rouibah and his assistant Abdelhamid Zerzour that their presence at the Consulate was to duly listen to and address the Algerian community members’ problems and not for other things, including the stamping out of bureaucracy and working with the local associations notably for the purpose of pooling together of the Algerian community members, in so much as the Marseille region counts more than 220 thousand Algerians registered at the Consulate there.

The new Consulate inauguration ceremony was also attended by French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayraut who responded to a question about the reported French authorities’ intention to compensate 11 thousand victims of the tragic events of 17 October 1961 in Paris and to another question on the much-sought retrieval by Algeria of the skulls of the Algerian resistance fighters now displayed at the Museum of Man in Paris, saying: “There are bilateral negotiations under way in this regard”, adding that “everything will come in due time”.