Did The French Ambassador To Algeria Fail In His Mission?

French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, appears to have failed in the mission for which he came to Algeria, and his authorities have begun the search for a successor, according to media sources from Paris.

Some French media sources said that the French President Emmanuel Macron launched a search for a successor to “Driencourt” in Algeria, nearly two years after he returned to his former position as the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of France to Algeria, succeeding Bernard Emié, who was summoned for other important tasks, which is the command of the Foreign Security Directorate of the French Intelligence Services (DGSE).

Driencourt was appointed in 2017 as his country’s ambassador to Algeria, months after Emmanuel Macron took office at the Elysée Palace, which is a rare case for an ambassador to return to a position that he was transferred from within a period of fewer than three years.

The French ambassador was not fortunate in his second mission to Algeria, which coincided with accelerated events, and in the second year of his mission there was the controversy that aroused by the former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term, which ended as it is known by the explosion of the street on last February,22, which ousted the president and imprisoned his surrounding politicians and influential businessmen and beneficiaries from corruption.

French media presented Xavier Driencourt as a friend of the former president’s family and some of the “oligarchs” who are close to the former regime, which placed him in the suspicious circle of the Algerian authorities in the post-resignation period.

Algeria’s army command has accused the mafia’s (corrupts) icons who are in the military prison in Blida (Said Bouteflika, brother of the former president and his special adviser, former Director of the Information and Security Department, General Mohamed Madiene called Toufik, and the former security services coordinator, Major General Bachir Tartag, and Labor Party leader Louisa Hanoune), of seeking to overthrow the authority of the army, as stated by the Chief of Staff: “In my interventions on March 30, 2019, I spoke about the suspicious meetings that were held in secret in order to conspire against the demands of the people and to obstruct the army’s efforts and proposals to resolve the crisis. We affirmed that we will reveal the truth, and here they are still active against the will of the people and working to worsen the situation by having contact with suspicious parties and inciting to block efforts to get out of the crisis”.

Some sources said that “suspicious meetings” were organized under the patronage and blessing of the French Embassy in Algeria, which increased the pressure on Driencourt to the extent that prevented him from carrying out his mission properly.

Observers believe that the stalemate that has characterized the Algerian-French relations since the fall of the “gang” (mafia) regime as some like to call it, and the Algerian side was concerned about the apparent coordination between the heads of the former regime and the French ambassador, causing the state of excessive caution of the French diplomat, in a way that limited his activity, at a time when he should have made greater efforts to enlighten his authorities about what is happening behind the walls, in a country that is not like other countries because it is about the former colonizer of Algeria.