Macron’s Mission to Dispel Clouds of the Crisis with Algeria

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune received a phone call from his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, which is the second call since the outbreak of the crisis between Algeria and Paris at the end of September 2021, and, as is known, led to the summoning of Algeria’s ambassador to Paris Mohamed Antar Daoud by the Algerian authorities, Algeria’s presidency of the republic said.

“The call focused on bilateral relations and the prospects for convening the joint higher sectoral committee. This contact was an opportunity that the French president used to invite his Algerian counterpart to attend the African-European Summit, in Brussels, expected on February 17-18”, the presidency’s statement added.

Macron’s first call with President Tebboune was on the tenth of last November, but that communication did not take place, because the Algerian president refused to answer the call, according to the French newspaper “L’Opinion”, which wrote at the time that “the French president tried to communicate with his Algerian counterpart to persuade him to participate in the international conference on Libya, which was hosted by the French capital, Paris, on December 12, but his interlocutor did not answer, and a message in this direction was sent to Algiers through diplomatic channels”.

The Algerian anger was embodied at the time by President Tebboune not responding to the invitation of his French counterpart, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, Ramtane Lamamra, was assigned to represent Algeria at the Libya Conference in Paris, given the sensitivity of this file for Algeria.

The improvement in relations between Algeria and Paris began on December,10 when the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, moved to Algeria on a surprise visit, but that visit was not sufficient to restore the normalization of bilateral relations, except with the return of the Algerian ambassador to his position in Paris on January,7 before the communication between the two presidents was officially embodied through yesterday’s call.

If the call of the French president came to invite President Tebboune to attend the upcoming African-European summit next month in the capital of the European Union, Brussels, given that France guarantees the rotating presidency of the European Union in the first half of this year, but this call came in a special political and diplomatic context that characterizes the French interior environment. However, it has repercussions on the relationship with Algeria in one way or another.

The past week witnessed an unprecedented movement in France, marked by the French President’s handling of some sensitive files related to memory, such as the issue of Harkis and Pieds-Noirs. Previously, he presented other apologies by enacting a law that would restore their consideration and compensate them for the

abandonment of the French state. He also apologized last Wednesday to the Pieds-Noirs for the abuses inflicted on them by the French army, after the signing of the Evian Accords that charted the path to Algeria’s independence, according to Macron’s statements.

While the Algerian party considers these measures to be an internal French affair, some observers think they constituted a provocation to the Algerian authorities and all Algerians because they come against the Algerian demands related to Paris’s apology for its colonial crimes in Algeria, a demand that is considered legitimate according to politicians and historians because of what Algeria was subjected to over 132 years of an abhorrent settlement occupation, which targeted all the capabilities of the country, and this demand exposed the double standards in the French President’s handling of the issue of memory in its part related to Algeria.

From this standpoint, it is not excluded that the French president may have tried to provide explanations to his Algerian counterpart about what happened last week, which undoubtedly seems to have political calculations related to the upcoming French presidential election next April, and in which Macron is considered one of the knights of this race, which bet will be between the outgoing president and candidates affiliated with the right-wing circles hostile to Algerian interests and grumbling about the loss of the French Algeria dream.