President Tebboune Sends A “Special Message” To France From Russia

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune sent a fleeting message from Moscow, which the French side will not miss.

The dispute between Algeria and Paris today appears in the form of an audio message that cannot be interpreted as diplomatic readings in which there is a bit of courtesy, especially based on the indications of the place from which this statement was issued.

During the signing of President Tebboune and his counterpart, Russian President Vladimir Putin, of the “deepened strategic partnership” agreement, during his visit to Russia, he did not rule out resorting to the Russian partner to help clean the areas of nuclear explosions from radiation: “There may be agreements to cleanse the areas where the nuclear explosions took place during the French colonial era in Algeria, to be purified by specialists from our friends in the Russian Federation.”

The issue of French nuclear tests and in particular the cleaning of the areas in which they took place (southern Algeria) from lethal radiation, and compensation for those affected by them, is among the files that have often affected the improvement of relations between Algeria and Paris, and it is one of the files that are present today on the table of the members of the Algerian-French mixed committee, concerned with searching the memory file.

The Algerian party has always called on its French counterpart to assume its responsibilities in this regard, such as handing over maps of nuclear explosions, organizing radioactive areas, compensating Algerians affected by nuclear radiation, and revealing places where nuclear waste is buried, but the French turned a deaf ear, insisted on rejecting discussions in this matter and showed arrogance.

All that Paris has done in the face of the repeated Algerian demands related to the scandal of the French nuclear tests in the south of Algeria, does not exceed the issuance of what has become known as the “Morin Law” in 2010, which is the law that gives the right to the victims affected by the nuclear tests to obtain financial compensation. The French government soon put in place very harsh procedures, with which it is impossible to collect the conditions required for obtaining compensation.

Although more than 13 years have passed since the enactment of this law, not a single Algerian was able to obtain compensation due to complex procedures, such as proving the relationship between the disease suffered by the affected person and nuclear radiation. Rather, only one Frenchman, who was a soldier in the occupation army and served in the area of nuclear tests, obtained compensation after proving a link between a rare disease he suffers from and nuclear radiation, according to French media reports.

Algeria’s tendency to seek the help of Russia to clean the areas of nuclear tests in the south of the country means that there is a state of despair on the Algerian side in the French side’s response to these decades-old demands, and this procrastination will not pass without leaving harsh repercussions on relations with the French state, which is the direct responsibility for this timeless crime against humanity based on international laws and norms.

There is a frantic race between Russia and France to win an exceptional partnership with Algeria, but it seems that the French negotiator failed to present and highlight the charms of his goods to Algeria, which concluded, after careful and in-depth study, that the French offers are not serious, but rather poisonous, as evidenced by the manoeuvres planned during the last weeks, which targeted the 1968 agreements regulating the movement of nationals between the two countries.

This fact would increase the cloudiness of the Algerian-French relations, after a period of stability, and the French side soon violated it with free provocations that will follow in the coming months, according to many observers of the Algerian-French relations.