A New French Provocation Towards Algeria

The French media once again returned to their usual provocations against Algeria and this time it uses the African illegal migrants who are in Algeria, and the reason was the Algerian authorities’ decision to deport them to their countries.

The party behind this provocation is a public channel and not a private one. Rather, it is directly affiliated with the French Foreign Ministry, represented by “France 24”, which leads to asserting that this approach is planned by some political considerations or calculations.

The French channel reported pictures that it said were sent to the “observers” editorial team, a program that is produced by the channel, referring to what it said was a “new wave of deportation of migrants from Algeria, which started since last September”, which included accusations to the Algerian authorities of ill-treatment of migrants.

The channel, which belongs to the Quai d’Orsay, claims: “Every time, people arrested are placed in detention centres before being taken in buses or trucks to the border with Niger in the heart of the desert.” The channel quoted a condemnation of these practices by a Cameroonian illegal migrant, as stated in a video that is still on the channel’s website.

France 24 quoted the Cameroonian man as accusing Algerian security services: “They break doors, take everyone. They put them in carriages. Then they are taken to deportation centres. The conditions inside these centres are unbearable …”.

The channel claims that recent weeks have witnessed the arrest of migrants in Oran, Tlemcen, Algeria, Annaba, Blida, Boumerdes, Tipaza, Zeralda and Setif, while migrants were arrested in their homes, in the streets and at their workplace, and transferred to Niger, although among the deportees were Africans of other nationalities and not only from Niger.

What is striking about the matter is that what “France 24” did, came less than a week after the visit of the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to Algeria, which calls into question the backgrounds of this documentary, which came at a time when the Algerian-French bilateral relations are in a state of stability.

France 24 channel’s broadcasted report is not new to the scene of Algerian-French relations. A few months ago, this channel hosted a French journalist who said that he is an expert in Algerian affairs and allowed him to attack Algeria, marketing false information about the Algerian military institution.

Less than a month ago, the Algerian Ministry of Communication filed a lawsuit against another French channel “M6” for broadcasting a TV documentary under the title “Algeria is the country of all revolutions”, which included all meanings of harming the unity and harmony of Algerian society, and it is the documentary that caused large controversy in political and media circles.

Before that, the public channel France 5 and LCI had attacked Algeria, which led the Algerian Foreign Ministry to summon the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, but the Algerian and French presidents later contained the situation.