Mohamed Bedjaoui's “Extraordinary Mission to Paris”, Exciting Historical Details

Memoirs of Algeria’s former ambassador to Paris, Mohamed Bedjaoui, cover an important period in the history of the Algerian-French relationships between “1970-1979” during the period of the late President Houari Boumediene.

Bedjaoui’s work “Extraordinary Mission, Notebook of An Ambassador in France between 1970 and 1979”, that was recently published by the Casbah Publisher, which was presented on the sidelines of the Paris show, spoke about the meeting with the former French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, after he was commissioned by the late Algeria President, Houari Boumediene, to protest against France’s support for Morocco on the expense of Algeria.

He said Boumediene protested after France held a weapons deal with King Hassan II, and this is what made him angry, and considered that such a move is a declaration of hostility from Paris, and this is what froze the Algerian-French relationships for a long time. 

Algerian-French frozen relationships returned to normal after the visit of Giscard d’Estaing to Algeria in April 1975, who aimed to mitigate the climate despite the fundamental differences over the Western Sahara issue.

“PM in the government of Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac, opposed this position and told me in several meetings that Giscard made a mistake by supporting Morocco on the expense of Algeria.”

Same work reveals the efforts that were made by France to Spain in order to support Morocco and abandon the Western Sahara issue; “French President sent in October 1975, Michel Poniatowski to Madrid for this purpose”.

“Relationships between the two countries noticed a crisis throughout the rule of the right party, as Algeria has always been betting on the left in the French elections. France was seeking to deport migrant workers in reaction to Boumediene’s decision to nationalize hydrocarbons. Boumedienne responded, just as it is entitled to France to expel Algerian workers, then Algeria in turn has a sovereign authority to nationalize its industrial companies.”

“Embassy and its crew received death threats when the film of Lakhdar Hamina “Chronicle of the Years of Fire” was presented at Cannes International Festival, and I intervened to overcome the harassment by the French authorities. I gave the identity documents to the national leader, Messali, despite the troubled relationship that he had with the regime at the time, and I tried to bring him to Algeria in the last days of his life, but his had bad health situation and this prevented him to visit homeland.”