Allegations of French Aid to Algeria Back on Le Pen’s Tongue

Even in light of the stifling constitutional crisis that France is experiencing, following the withdrawal of confidence from Prime Minister Michel Barnier, the French far-right refuses to leave Algeria aside and search for political solutions to what Paris is experiencing, to confirm to the observers that many of the problems experienced by relations between Algeria and Paris are caused by the practices of this movement that has not yet swallowed its political, military and moral defeat in its former colony.

In a program on the far-right channel “C News,” the leader of the far-right, Marine Le Pen, reiterated allegations previously made by Sarah Knafo, the MEP for the “National Rally” party, the successor to the far-right National Front, that France provides financial aid to Algeria, which Algeria had previously denied.

Although the TV program was dedicated to the political and constitutional crisis that France is experiencing after the fall of the French government last Thursday, Marine Le Pen included Algeria in her political speech, in loyalty to her biological and political family’s hostility to everything Algerian.

The former French presidential candidate said, “The money France gives to Algeria should be allocated to the French overseas departments.”

Marine Le Pen spoke about three countries she claimed were receiving French money: Algeria, China, and the Comoros, a former French colony, one of which, Mayotte, is still under colonial administration.

While the question directed to the far-right politician was centred on the daily problems suffered by the French population, such as the lack of water, electricity and other life requirements, she turned her words to Algeria in a tone of denunciation, saying: “We give money to Algeria, which constantly spits in our face.”

She also accused the leader of “La France Insoumise” party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of encouraging the inhabitants of the French colonies, which according to the political literature in Paris are called “overseas departments”, to gain independence from France.

Previously in September, Sarah Knafo, a European MP for Marine Le Pen’s party, claimed that France provides Algeria with around 800 million euros annually in development aid, a figure that was questioned even by the French media at the time, and was categorically denied by the Algerian authorities, who were forced to file a lawsuit against the European MP, a lawsuit that was rejected by the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office, although the French justice itself questioned the veracity of the aforementioned figure.

The allegations about French financial aid to Algeria were only one of the outlets through which the French far-right attacked Algeria. It also took the issue of immigration, the colonial past (memory), the 1968 agreement, the deportation of illegal immigrants who were subject to expulsion orders from French territory, the Western Sahara issue, and finally the arrest of the French writer, Boualem Sansal, as files to poison bilateral relations and it succeeded last summer, when it pushed Emmanuel Macron to support the Moroccan regime’s autonomy plan in Western Sahara, which led to a firm position from Algeria represented in severing the bridges of diplomatic representation with Paris, and limiting it to its lowest level, i.e. the chargé d’affaires.