Driencourt’s Woeful Statements Mined The Path Of the French Ambassadors In Algeria

The Secretary of State in charge of the national community abroad, Abdhalim Ben Atallah, delved into the secrets of the Algerian-French conflict that took place behind closed walls over the 1968 immigration agreement and how the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, tried to exploit this paper in the electoral calculations of the French presidential elections in 2012. in support of former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Ben Atallah, who was previously Algeria’s ambassador in Brussels and its representative to the European Union, stopped at the personality of Ambassador Driencourt, who worked in Algeria twice, the first between 2008 and 2012, during which period Ben Atallah held the portfolio of deputy minister, and the second period from 2017 to 2020, in which he revealed unknown facts about the French ambassador who has filled the world with noise in recent weeks, attacking Algeria and calling on his country to unilaterally forsake the 1968 agreement.
The former Secretary of State attributes the controversial “exit” of the French diplomat and his fabrication of problems out of nothing to the peculiarities of this man, who worked in the French Foreign Ministry, but was not a successful diplomat in that his professional life was dominated by an administrative nature, even if he spent his life in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Quai D’Orsay).
Ben Atallah says in an interview with the electronic channel “Lemarsef” that “Driencourt is a figure of a predominantly administrative nature compared to other French ambassadors I have known. They were really prominent and well-known personalities, personalities of trust for the president”, surprising one of the previous statements of the French diplomat, in which he said that he was under censorship in Algeria: “Driencourt says he was under surveillance in Algeria…every ambassador is under surveillance.”
He added: “He was secretary-general of the Foreign Ministry, then he went to Algeria as an ambassador, then he returned to France as secretary-general”, which confirms that the man was not part of the “circle of French negotiators”.
The former Algerian ambassador in Brussels wonders: “How can a person at the level of an ambassador work in Algeria twice (about eight years) and then say that he does not understand anything in the Algerian system and considers Algeria a mystery? I was very surprised.
The former Secretary of State goes on to comment on Ambassador Driencourt’s diplomatic performance, saying, “During his stay in Algeria, French interests there (Algeria) suffered damage and French companies working there were expelled. The question is, what was Driencourt doing in Algeria then?” In short, he is a failed diplomat. So says the article.
Ben Atallah also affirmed that he had two contacts with the French diplomat, the first direct and the second indirect, when he was appointed Minister of the Community. I was assigned by the government, says the former minister, to build bridges of communication with the Algerian community abroad in all its diversity, especially in France, since this country is the one that hosts the largest community.
The surprise of Driencourt was great, the spokesman adds, which is that in a note addressed to the authorities of his country, he characterized these efforts as interference in the internal affairs of France. This means that this ambassador did not enjoy the culture of dialogue and communication with the authorities of the Algerian state in which he worked as an ambassador, and Ben Atallah was not surprised by what came from Driencourt because the latter was an administrative man and did not have the diplomatic sense that should distinguish any ambassador, as already mentioned.
As for the direct contact between him and the French ambassador, it was in June 2012, in relation to an activity organized by the Paris Mosque in Lille, France, for the benefit of the community. On that day, the Secretary of State was convinced that Driencourt was not heard, neither in his country nor in Algeria, as he said.
Xavier Driencourt’s career was the weakest in the history of diplomacy between Algeria and France among all his French counterparts, according to Ben Atallah, who estimated that what the French ambassador wrote about Algeria in his book “The Algerian Puzzle” would “determine the path of French ambassadors in Algeria in the future. He did not take into account the interests of his country, and by publishing this book, he would have signed the French failure in Algeria.
The former minister revealed that Driencourt’s problem with the 1968 agreement was not born in 2023, but dates back to his first term as ambassador to Algeria (2008/2012), when Algeria submitted its proposals, but it was the French side that did not submit its proposals, but Driencourt started talking about the refusal of the side. The Algerian asked his country’s authorities to reconsider unilaterally.
Ben Atallah confirms that the Secretary General of the Quai D’orsay visited Algeria in June 2011 before the resumption of the negotiations on the agreement, because Sarkozy was in the electoral campaign and wanted to withdraw this card from the extreme right, and indicates that the year 2012 witnessed two rounds of negotiations in Algeria and then in Paris. I was in charge of the file before he asked: “How does Driencourt say that Algeria refuses to negotiate the agreement? He was absent from the scene, as if the matter did not concern him, or was he expelled by the authorities of his country?”
And the former Algerian ambassador to Brussels reveals that the Algerian party was not ready to conclude the negotiations to revise the agreement before the presidential elections of 2012, so as not to hand Sarkozy, the right-wing candidate for the elections, a paper to win over his rival at the time, Francois Hollande, indicating that the French state wanted to return to the law. The year jumped on the agreement in dealing with Algerian nationals, while the Algerian side was looking for another agreement related to tourist visas for Algerians.