French Foreign Minister “Plays” The Visa Card

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has joined the escalating diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Paris, accompanying his far-right government colleague Bruno Retailleau, threatening to take a number of measures, but they remain traditional, such as complicating the securing of visas.

The head of French diplomacy said on Friday evening that his country ‘will have no other option but to respond’ if the ‘escalatory attitude continues’, following the refusal of the Algerian authorities to receive a person deported by France, outside the framework of the applicable legal procedures, as his case has not been presented to the judiciary, although it is scheduled for next February, according to a previous statement by the prosecutor in the southern French city of Montpellier, Fabrice Baillargeon.

In his remarks to the private French TV channel LCI, Jean-Noël Barrot hinted at playing some influential cards to put pressure on Algeria, including visas and development aid, as well as a number of other measures related to cooperation, the nature of which he did not disclose.

The French foreign minister re-raised the issue of development aid, an issue previously raised by far-right European Parliament member Sara Khanafou, but which the Algerian authorities have denied.

The Algerian authorities did not allow an influencer known as ‘Boualem’, whom France deported to Algeria on Friday, to get off the plane allocated by the French authorities to transport him, and he was sent back from where he came, which caused a state of agitation among the French authorities, in the form of Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who considered the Algerian position as a humiliation for his country, and said in an angry statement: ‘France cannot tolerate this situation. We must now evaluate all the means at our disposal vis-à-vis Algeria to defend our interests.’

French officials have also jumped on the bandwagon, including former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who called for the suspension of the Franco-Algerian agreement signed in 1968 on immigration, which grants Algerian nationals privileges related to work, residence, study and the practice of liberal professions.

Gabriel Attal, who is currently a member of parliament and head of the Macron party’s parliamentary group, believes that France has many cards to play against Algeria, including reducing the number of visas for Algerians, a measure he claims can rehabilitate his country, which has been humiliated by Algeria, as French Interior Minister Breno Retailleau said on Friday.

The most extreme position was taken by the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, in an interview with the far-right channel C News, where he called for using all possible means to release the writer Boualem Sansal, who is under arrest in Algeria pending trial after making dangerous statements against the country’s territorial integrity.

Driencourt sees a way out of the Sansal case, which has greatly troubled his country, by resorting to completely unworkable options, such as the use of pressure and even force, citing the example of the French plane that was hijacked in the 1990s in Algeria by terrorists.

Driencourt, author of the memoir ‘The Algerian Mystery’, is considered one of the most prominent far-right theorists in France regarding relations with Algeria.
He is credited with initiating the call for the cancellation of the immigration agreement signed between the two countries in 1968, but none of his proposals were taken into consideration due to their suicidal implications for relations between Algeria and Paris.