Emmanuel Macron To Walk The Streets Of Algiers

Algiers Tangier old street, Emir Abdel Qader Square, the Central Post Office and Maurice Audin, where the works of paving the sidewalks and decorating the gardens with flowers and flags are done at a fast pace, and where extraordinary measures are initiated by the authorities of Algiers in anticipation of the visit of the French President, Emmanuel Macron, on Wednesday.

Preparations are done in full swing and the cleaners and maintenance workers are scattered on the streets where Emmanuel Macron will walk.

Official reception will be enjoyed by Emmanuel Macron when he will arrive at Algiers International Airport, where the mini military shows and the Republican Guard music will be offered to him, which reflect the nature of the visit, and closed meetings and deals will be concluded between the two countries. 

Macron will visit the streets of Algiers, in the tradition of French Presidents on their official visits to Algeria, like Jacques Chirac, who chose to visit the popular neighborhood of Bab El Oued, and Nicolas Sarkozy who preferred to visit the capital of Eastern Algeria, Constantine, while Fronsçois Hollande accompanied the President Bouteflika to Telemcen (Western Algeria), and he also walked to the square of Maurice Audin, who died under torture because he supported the independence of Algeria.

Arrangements, Race Against Time

It was the midday when we came to the square of Prince Abdel Qader, adjacent to the headquarters of the Central Municipality of Algiers, where everyone was busy with the coating of sidewalks and trimming trees and planting flowers .. Works that were followed by official from the Municipality of Central Algiers, who came to the field to provide instructions and finish the last works.

Even the authorities of Algiers hastened the appointment of Abdelhakim Batache, as chairman of the People’s Assembly of Central Algiers, on Monday evening, as he is the winner of the last local elections on the list of “Pearl of Algiers” party.

Although Algeria is ostensibly optimistic to settle the outstanding memory files between the two countries since the arrival of Emmanuel Macron in power, he is adhering to his previous statements that he made last month from Algeria as a candidate for the Elysee Palace, describing French colonialism as “a crime against humanity”, but the Algerian street is not very interested with the visit of Macron or his absence, and considers the visit as normal and formal as the rest of the visits by former French Presidents.

“It is true that any French official visit to Algeria, regardless of its size, whether it concerns a mayor or president of a republic, is making a media fuss over the colonial past and the Paris leaders refusal to admit their crimes, but I do not think that Macron has a magic wand”, said one citizen. 

“Like the former French President Macron is looking for their interests only. Macron wants to lift the economic blockade of his country and try to win the largest deals from Algeria and say otherwise is just the peak of ashes in the eyes”, he added.

“I am not interested in Macron or anything else because we do not know the objectives of the visit and its background, and the media will only talk about the generalities of the visit and the protocols of the reception”; said a young man. 

“Although a significant number of citizens believe that the visit is a formality, but Algeria has regained its foreign image and its reception of a French President as a sovereign and independent state is also a good thing and an indication that Algeria has a place in the international arena”; a man said.