Former French Ambassador to Algeria in Trouble

The former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, has so far remained silent regarding the statement issued by the Prime Minister’s services, which was reported in a telegram issued by the Algerian Press Agency, describing his post on “X” regarding Algeria’s restriction of its trade transactions with France as “fake news”.

The Prime Ministry said in a press release on Thursday: “Following the false allegations promoted by the former French ambassador to Algeria in his usual madness against Algeria, regarding the alleged restrictive measures on foreign trade, the press office of the Prime Minister would like to categorically deny this information, which is completely baseless.”

On Wednesday, Xavier Driencourt posted on his “X” account: “To thank France, Algeria decides to block all French imports and exports to France,” his post was mocked by activists on social media, because of his talk about Algeria’s “thanks” to France.

He also published a screenshot, in which he claimed that Algerian banks had received instructions to stop the banking settlement of foreign trade operations to and from France, which he found on social media, while he was supposed to verify its authenticity before promoting fake news and commenting on it in a way that would stir up strife waiting for someone to ignite it between two countries witnessing troubled relations.

Despite the severity of the Algerian Prime Ministry’s press release in response to Driencourt, the latter maintained his silence, in what seemed to be a feeling of embarrassment, because he based his post on unofficial sources, despite the sensitivity of such posts, especially since it concerns a country in which he worked twice, and was involved through his posts on social media and his memoirs, in controversies that made him a non-neutral party in what he wrote about it.

The statement of the Prime Ministry constitutes a clear refutation of the allegations of the retired French diplomat, and perhaps the failure to clarify his position can be explained by his falling into a mistake, as he published information that could be misleading since it was not issued by an official body, and he is experienced in diplomatic work and is aware of the sensitivity of falling into such pitfals.

The former French ambassador used to attack Algeria in many French media, especially the right-wing ones, such as the newspaper “Le Figaro”, which made him a specialist in Algerian-French relations, and even a theorist of the right and the far right, where he made Algerian interests in the former colony a target for his arrows, most notably the 1968 immigration agreement, calling for its review or final cancellation, even unilaterally.

Driencourt’s star has risen among the French right and far right since he published his controversial book “The Algerian Enigma”, in which he collected his memoirs about two years ago. This book included fabrications and approaches about the nature of the regime in Algeria, and this was the starting point for him to become a semi-permanent “expert” of Algerian affairs.

What the retired French diplomat published also cast a shadow on the French interior, as the French Foreign Ministry intervened through its spokesman, Christophe Lemoine, to confirm that his country was not aware of “such measures.”