Files To Be Reopened After Algeria’s Relations With Paris Return To Normal

In the first statement by a French official after the return of the Algerian ambassador, Mohamed-Antar Daoud, to his functions in Paris, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, said that this step would allow the reopening of many outstanding files between the two countries.

The head of French diplomacy drew a “road map” after the Algerian ambassador returned to Paris; “We want to revive the partnership with Algeria. We have a common history, marred by complexity and suffering. We must overcome this and resume together with the path of discussion”, Jean-Yves Le Drian said in an interview with BFMTV.

During the three months in which the Algerian ambassador was absent from his duties, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the author of quiet statements in the French camp, had done everything he could to rearrange the papers, as he was quick to assert that his country respects the sovereignty of Algeria and its people, immediately after the offensive statements by the French President Emmanuel Macron. Le Drian was also keen to meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, Ramtane Lamamra, at the African-European Summit in Rwanda before he unexpectedly visited Algeria last December.

The French Foreign Minister’s keenness to “revive the partnership” between the two countries means that Paris has lost many privileges in Algeria, especially the economic ones, during the last few years, due to the political and diplomatic tension caused by the French positions on many internal issues in the country.

It is known that the partnership file between Algeria and Paris was brought by the former French President, François Hollande, in 2012, and he called it the “exceptional partnership”, and it was presented as an alternative after the failure of the draft “friendship treaty” that was scheduled to be signed before 2005, but the February 23 (2005) law glorifying colonialism threw that treaty into the water.

Although there are many outstanding issues between the two countries, such as the issue of immigration and the movement of people, and the issue of memory, the economic and cultural interests (the French language in particular) are considered the most sensitive for the French party, which many of them were acquired during the last two decades, taking advantage of the rapprochement recorded between the two countries.

During the past two years, the French institutions in Algeria lost many points in favour of their rivals from China and Turkey. It should be noted here that the contract of the “Suez” institution, which oversees the management of water distribution services in both Algiers and Tipasa, was not renewed, and another French institution, “RATP”, which has the privilege of running the Algiers Metro Company, after years of managing this sensitive institution, and there are many other examples.

Summary of the words of the head of the French diplomacy, that his country wants to restore its leading presence in the economic field in Algeria, but this privilege remains hostage to a tax that the French authorities must pay, which is the reversal of some of the decisions they have taken, foremost of which is the issue of visas that Paris cut in half from one side, and the issue of memory, which remains among the most sensitive issues between the two countries.

After all that, there is talk about other files related to cooperation in security issues in the Sahel and Libya. However, the biggest problem that threatens to continually poison bilateral relations, remains the French position on the Western Sahara issue, which was clarified crudely, through the recent report of the United Nations on Western Sahara and in which Paris had a role that cannot be ignored.