The French Far-Right Demands The Transfer Of Hard Currency From Algeria To France!

In a context that transcends the social dimension to clear financial and political calculations, some French circles have returned to raising the issue of pension benefits, in an attempt to pressure Algeria to pay Algerian retirees who worked and were employed throughout their lives within the country and contributed to the national pension fund, and to transfer these funds in hard currency to France after they chose to reside there.

This strange request, according to what “Echorouk” has seen, came through a written question submitted by MP Christian Gerard, a member of the French National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, from the far-right National Rally party, known for its strong hostility towards Algeria and Algerians, addressed to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and dated December 12, 2025.

In the details of the strange demand, the French MP accuses Algeria of not implementing the general social security agreement signed between the two countries on October 1, 1980, claiming that the National Pension Fund refuses to transfer the pensions of Algerian retirees and dual nationals residing in France, even though they were subject to the Algerian pension system and contributed to it within Algeria.

The question is based on a French interpretation that considers the refusal to transfer these pensions to deprive those concerned of their resources and push them to benefit from non-contributory French social assistance, such as the elderly solidarity allowance, which constitutes a financial burden on the French treasury.

The MP also presents figures indicating that France annually pays approximately one billion euros to retirees residing in Algeria, in an attempt to show the absence of “reciprocity,” forgetting that this concerns immigrants who worked in France and then decided to return to their home country, and not the other way around.

However, this argument ignores the principle of Algerian legislative sovereignty and the rule of territoriality of social laws, in addition to the fact that those concerned retired and worked within Algeria and are not migrant workers in France, which makes the transfer of their pensions in foreign currency a political and financial demand rather than a fixed legal right, especially in the absence of any explicit agreement obliging Algeria to transfer internal pensions in hard currency abroad.

The French demand adds that the non-transfer of pensions harms the principle of social justice, according to MP Gerard’s interpretation and claim, and places France in a position of “clear financial loss,” while Algerian observers believe that this argument lacks any internal legal basis that justifies compelling Algeria to transfer pension funds earned within its territory to another country, especially since pensions are the result of citizens’ contributions to their national fund, and not international funds that can be disposed of according to external demand.

The French question also refers to what it claims is “the absence of reciprocity,” explaining that France annually pays approximately one billion euros to French retirees residing in Algeria, while it does not receive a similar transfer for Algerian retirees residing in France, to justify political pressure on Algeria.

It is clear from these demands that there is a tendency among a segment of the French political class towards attracting Algerian hard currency and exerting financial and political pressure, rather than protecting the rights of Algerian retirees, which places Paris in the position of an external claimant that ignores Algerian national sovereignty and the principles of internal justice.