French Interior Minister Renews Attacks on Algeria

The recent remarks of the French Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, have increased the strength of doubts about the existence of different visions within the French executive apparatus in light of the escalating crisis with Algeria, in what appeared to be a comment or response to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, who had implicitly criticized Retailleau’s previous statements.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau reiterated his famous statement made on January 10, when Algeria refused to receive the influencer “Boualem”, whom Rettailleau deported by an administrative decision that lacked legal and diplomatic norms, claiming that Algeria’s decision was an “insult” to his country.

Retailleau’s remarks came a few days after the implicit criticism directed at him by Jean-Noël Barrot (Minister of Foreign Affairs), who refused to consider what happened on January 9 as an “insult” (the aborted deportation incident), in a talk show broadcast by the radio and television station RTL, in which he doubted that the Algerian authorities had insulted Paris by refusing to receive the influencer “Boualem”, and also pleaded for not creating tension with Algeria through expressing his readiness to visit it if the Algerian authorities approved his request.

In an attempt to show that he is not isolated in François Bayrou’s government, Retailleau attacked Algeria again for insulting France: “Algeria has not respected international law and cannot offend France with impunity. A certain number of measures must be considered, such as ending the 1968 agreement,” he said in statements to the right-wing channel BFM TV.

Retailleau’s position has caused discord in the executive branch and among influential French figures. The latest was former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who strongly criticized his position without naming him. He denounced the statements calling for the cancellation of the 1968 agreement as contradictory, as he said, to humanitarian, historical, and geographical considerations.

The Interior Minister’s words challenged Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, who called for respecting his powers in managing the file with Algeria. Barrot considered this one of the exclusive powers of the “Quai d’Orsay” that works under the directives of French President Emmanuel Macron. Barrot explained that his mission is to solve problems and not create crises, implicitly messaging Retailleau that what he does hinders his efforts to restore relations with Algeria, which he described more than once as important.

Jean-Noël Barrot had confirmed that it is very difficult to review the 1968 immigration agreement, due to the many amendments made to it in 1986, 1994 and 2001, after another attempt to review it failed during the era of former French President, right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2011. He also attributed the difficulty of reviewing it to the difficult circumstances of relations between the two countries, as it is an international agreement and one party cannot impose its logic by carrying out a unilateral review.

After the extreme right-wing figures, led by the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, had been rampaging for months demanding the cancellation of the 1968 agreement, prominent political figures in the French scene have come to the fore, warning of the dangers of the trends that the extreme right is trying to impose on relations with Algeria.

In this context, former minister Dominique de Villepin, the former minister and candidate for the 2007 French presidential elections, Ségolène Royal, the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of ” La France Insoumise” party, all of whom warned against giving in to the far right, which is motivated by considerations of the past, to harm Algerian-French relations.