Hysteria and confusion on the French far right after President Tebboune’s criticism

The impact of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s words to the French far-right, especially the Rassemblement National (Le Pen’s party), was so heavy that the head of this party, Jordan Bardella, came out with words inherited from those who gave the French and Algerians a choice between “French Algeria” or death.

While commenting on President Tebboune’s interview with Le Pen, especially the part where he talks about Marine Le Pen, who threatened to replicate the experience of the new US President Donald Trump by expelling Algerians if she comes to power, the far-right party leader said: “We gave independence to Algeria, now the Algerian regime must give us our independence.”

Jordan Bardella’s remarks came in a talk show for the “Europe 1” station, prepared by the journalist of Tunisian origin, Sonia Mabrouk, on the morning of Tuesday, February 4, and the agent of the Le Pen family in the “National Front” party, after changing its name to “National Rally”, was in a state of hysteria, due to the harsh criticism that President Tebboune directed at this movement and its leader, Marine Le Pen, through the newspaper “L’Opinion”.

President Tebboune said: “The RN officials only know power. The DNA of this party still contains remnants of the Secret Army (an organization formed by French military personnel, including Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, in the early 1960s in opposition to the country’s independence),” Tebboune said.

President Tebboune asked: “What will Marine Le Pen do if she comes to power? Does she want to organize a “Val d’Hiv campaign” (meaning the arrest and deportation of about 13,000 French Jews during the Nazi rule of France)? and stop all Algerians before deporting them?”

Jordan Bardella, a far-right politician of Algerian descent, strongly criticized the French diplomatic policy towards Algeria, due to what he described as the Macron administration’s inaction in responding to the “provocations” of the Algerian side. Bardella, a far-right politician of Algerian descent, has proposed a “zero visa” policy for Algerian citizens if Algeria continues to refuse to receive people under arrest in France.

Bardella, who is also a member of the European Parliament, used the phrase “Algeria’s insult to France” after it refused to take in a second deportee in less than a month, according to the far-right channel CNews, a phrase that was previously echoed by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau.

The ideology of the party, founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the early 1970s, is based on the delusion that it was General de Gaulle who granted independence to Algeria in 1962, in an attempt to skip over the fact that colonial France was defeated militarily, politically and morally in its war against Algeria.

Bardella’s predecessors, led by Le Pen Sr., had done everything possible to block Algerian independence by all means, including the establishment of the terrorist Organization of the Secret Army (OAS), which dipped into the blood of both Algerians and Frenchmen, and tracked down General de Gaulle and attempted to assassinate him twenty times until his death in 1968, according to specialized French investigations.

True to the racially charged positions of the extremist movement, Baredella pledged to continue to follow this path and in solidarity with its leader Marine Le Pen, saying: “If tomorrow the RN finds itself at the head of state, we will do exactly what Donald Trump did with regard to Colombia: respect the national interest. I can assure you that if Algeria continues its provocations, there will not be a single visa for Algerian nationals from the moment Algeria refuses to receive them.”