Is Paris Convinced That It Made A Mistake Against Algeria?

Algeria and France agreed to work together to bring peace to the so-called “major conflict areas” in Libya and the Sahel region, a conclusion that culminated in a one-day visit to Algeria by the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, on Thursday.

The Presidency of the Republic said in a statement that the meeting between the two parties allowed “an exchange of views on the regional situation in the Sahel region and Libya, and the necessity for the situation to deepen consultations to accelerate the establishment of security and lasting peace in the region.”

As for the head of the French diplomacy, he said that Algeria and Paris “continue to work together and that their positions are very close to the desire to establish peace in some regions”, which he described as “major conflict situations”, referring to the situation in Libya and the crisis in the Sahel region.

French Foreign Minister’s visit to Algeria is the second of its kind in less than two months. He visited in Algeria on January 21, while no Algerian official visited Paris for more than a year, which indicates that Algeria is the angry party, not Paris.

Naturally, the bilateral relationships have taken part of the discussion: “This official visit is considered a stop in the new dynamic that bilateral relationships have entered”, according to what was said by the head of French diplomacy, after his meeting with the President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

However, the French party’s unyielding desire to revive its damaged relationships with Algeria about a year ago did not prevent it from openness to discussion on other issues that had contributed to the poisoning of bilateral relationships, including the Libyan crisis, given that Paris has long worked to hinder Algerian efforts in Libya, by supporting a party that has been hostile to Algeria for several years, represented by the retired general Khalifa Haftar.

In this regard, diplomatic sources said that France wants the UN’s Secretary-General, António Guterres, to assign the former Foreign Minister, Ramtane Lamamra, to succeed the resigning UN’s Special Envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salamé, a trend that may increase the bridge of the chasm between Algeria and Paris, which was finally convinced that what it calls “major crises” in North Africa and the Sahel region, cannot be resolved far from Algeria.

Involvement of Paris in supporting Algerian efforts to resolve the crisis in Libya is the best step that the French authorities can take to restore its intertwined relationships with Algeria. Perhaps Le Drian’s visit to Algeria at this particular time is considered an indication of Paris’s tendency towards prudence.

The French party realizes that his excessive selfishness in dealing with Algeria, which was embodied in his previous practices with the regime of the former President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has no place at the current stage, and therefore Macron was keen to send his foreign minister to Algeria twice in less than two months, but these visits remain in need of concrete action on many levels, economic, commercial and investment, which remain below the hoped-for level if they do not contain a lot of opportunism and selfishness.