Mayor of Paris to visit Algeria to tighten relationships

Algerian-French summit, which is expected to be held on December 16th, however, approached, but the fate of the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ramtane Lamamra, to Paris remains unknown, although it intended to prepare the summit for both Algeria and France PMs.

Media sources claimed that the cancellation or postponement of Laamamra’s visit to France, which was scheduled on November 13th, has a relationship with the participation of France in the forum on border security in the Sahel and Sahara regions, that was hosted by the city of Rabat, Morocco, on November 14th, as the Algerian party denounced France’s participation in this event, according to French sources.

It is known that Algeria had boycotted the Rabat meeting which was attended by 17 countries, including the United States and a number of European countries including France, as Algeria reduced its representation and merely commissioned its ambassador to Morocco in order to attend the works, because of the diplomatic crisis that erupted between Algiers and Rabat, on the background of the fierce attack against the headquarters of the Algerian consulate in Casablanca, and the subsequent desecration of the Algerian National flag. An incident, which chapters do not yet finished, as Algeria insisted on its position of the premises to participate in the investigation into the incident, and revealing its details and drawbacks.

In light of this fact, the Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, and his assistant in charge of international relationships, European and Francophone affairs, in Pierre Schapira, next Tuesday, on the sidelines of the visit, which leads the French official to Algeria, according to a statement by the French Embassy in Algeria (Echorouk received a copy of it).

Bertrand Delanoe, who belongs to the ruling party in France, will meet Algiers governor Abdelkader Zoukh, to stand on the progress of the cooperation that is programmed between the capitals of the two countries, as he will also meet with the prime minister, according to the statement, to discuss the issues that are related to memory since 2001, especially the revival of the annual anniversary of the bloody repression on October 17, 1961 in Paris, where French armed forces killed many Algerians who demonstrated peacefully on that day, to demand independence, as was recognized clearly by President Francois Hollande in 2012, during his visit to Algeria.

Three weeks from the date of the French-Algerian upcoming summit in Paris , between Abdelmalek Sellal and Jean-Mark Ayrault, no date is arranged for the deferred visit of Ramtane Lamamra to France, and may be cancelled, which would put the date of December 16 on the line, and in the this regard, the visit of Bratrand Delanoe, would be an opportunity to remove the “resentment of Algeria”, especially as the mayor of Paris is not an ordinary politician, and he is considered one of the Socialist Party men, just like Francois Hollande, who supported the re-normalization of relationships between Algeria and France after years of estrangement, because of the reckless attitudes and policies of his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.