Algerian-French Relations: Escalation reaches advanced levels

French authorities have been escalating their dispute with Algeria, arresting influencers of Algerian origin over the weekend on vague charges of “promoting terrorism, death threats, and inciting hatred and violence” via social media, in the latest escalation between the two countries.

Media reports, citing a telegram from Agence France-Presse (AFP), indicated that police forces arrested two influencers of Algerian origin on Friday, January 3, in Brest in northwestern France and near Grenoble (southeast) on charges of promoting terrorism and death threats, after posting videos on TikTok.

The French authorities accuse the two arrested individuals, as stated by Alain Espinasse, the governor of Finistère, of circulating videos with “illegal content” on TikTok, as they claim, and have blocked their accounts. At the same time, the French Interior Minister with far-right tendencies, Bruno Retailleau, came out to call for the accused to be held accountable before the judicial services, in a tweet on “X”.

This incident came a few days after President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s fiery annual address before the two chambers of parliament, which included a sharp attack on Paris, where he fiercely attacked French colonialism saying: “When colonialism set foot on Algerian soil, the Algerian people were developed at that time, and Algeria was a producer and donor of wheat. Colonialism committed successive massacres in all parts of our country. It brought nothing but destruction, devastation and the extermination of the people,” in a direct message to his French counterpart who claimed more than two years ago that Algeria did not exist before the French occupation in 1830. Tebboune called on Paris to clean up the dirt it left behind in Algeria.

President Tebboune also accused Paris of involvement in the case of the French writer, Boualem Sansal, who is in detention awaiting trial: “You sent us a thief, of unknown identity and father, to tell us that half of Algeria belongs to another country,” in a stern response to the far-right politicians and those who orbit around them, who are demanding his release.

Only two days after President Tebboune’s statements, the French authorities represented by the official spokesman for the Quai d’Orsay (Foreign Ministry), Christophe Lemoine, stated that France is committed to its relations with Algeria, and even wants to develop further horizons.

Although the Algerian side has cut off all contact with its French counterpart since last summer, following the sudden shift in Paris’s position on the Western Sahara issue, by withdrawing Algeria’s ambassador from Paris, Said Moussi, and reducing diplomatic representation to the level of chargé d’affaires, France is still clinging to the “Algiers Declaration” that was signed in August 2022, during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, as Christophe Lemoine estimated that “dialogue between the two countries remains necessary to coordinate on regional security issues, especially in the Sahel region and Libya.”

All these developments occurred in less than a week, indicating that what happened was a reflection of the deterioration in relations between Algeria and Paris since last summer, which are heading towards the unknown in light of President Tebboune’s condition that France apologize for its colonial crimes in Algeria in exchange for normalizing bilateral relations.

It seems that the French president, who has been in an uncomfortable political situation since losing the last legislative elections, is unable to meet the Algerian demands, especially those related to the memory file, because of his dependence on the far right, which has come to control one of the largest sovereign ministerial portfolios, the Interior Ministry, which is led by Bruno Retailleau, a right-wing arm whose positions are closer to the far right than to the traditional right, known as the Gaullist movement.