Retailleau Disavows Exacerbating French-Algerian Relations

Former French Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, refused to take responsibility for the deterioration of relations with Algeria, and blamed his country’s president, Emmanuel Macron. Retailleau considered “cultural diversity in France a problem,” a view that confirms the man’s saturation with exclusionary ideas against other ethnic and religious sensitivities of the French.

Retailleau said that he was not a member of the French government when Algeria decided to stop security cooperation with his country, and this coincided with the Olympic Games hosted by his country last summer between July 26 and August 11, 2024. Rotayo was implicitly referring here to the French President’s decision to support the Moroccan regime in the Western Sahara issue, which coincided with the organization of those games, and that was on July 30, 2024.

The former French minister explained in an interview with the French channel “LCI” last weekend: “Algeria stopped security cooperation with us in the Sahel region, as well as during the organization of the Olympic Games,” a position he did not digest, adding: “Even the Russians did not stop cooperation with us despite the crisis that affected relations between Moscow and other European capitals.”

The former French Interior Minister, who is obsessed with all things Algerian, was not far from the truth in his analysis of the crisis, given that the beginning of the crisis, which continues to this day, was at the end of July 2024, before Retailleau arrived at the Beauvau Palace, and the reason was due to the controversial decision taken by Macron at the time, considering the Sahrawi territories as part of the alleged sovereignty of the Moroccan regime.

There is an impression in France as well as in Algeria that Retailleau contributed to complicating the crisis between Algeria and France, due to his provocative and aggressive statements towards all things Algerian. Moreover, the failure of his policy, which he called “gradual response,” put the French government and Macron in an unenviable position, because this policy did not achieve anything for France, but rather exposed its weakness before French public opinion, and it was also estimated that “the policy of the outstretched hand with Algeria is a dismal failure.”

Retailleau lost much of his political influence due to the failure of the “iron fist policy” that he dragged both French President Macron and the government of François Bayrou into. He also became the subject of accusations from everyone, including his friends on the right and far-right, due to his aggressive statements towards Algeria, which further complicated the situation of the two French prisoners, Boualem Sansal and Christophe Glize, who were sentenced in Algeria to five and seven years in prison, respectively.

Nevertheless, Retailleau renewed his demands to stop visas granted to Algerians, at a time when Algeria, as he said, continues to refuse to receive those against whom expulsion orders have been issued, while the Algerian side had confirmed on more than one occasion that the French must respect the deportation procedures, which require obtaining a consular permit, as is customary in diplomatic norms, while at the same time expressing his thanks to the French deputies, Charles Rodwell and Mathieu Lefebvre, who prepared a parliamentary report justifying the call for a review of the 1968 agreement.