This Is How The Former French Ambassador To Algeria Was Blackmailing Officials With Visa Granting

The former Minister of Industry and Mines, Farhat Ait Ali, confirmed that the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, “does not abide by any of the rules of reservation accepted in diplomatic norms, not even a shred of consideration for personal credibility in the narration of matters, and the unilateral judgment of intentions towards the Algerian side.” He warned that he is “a crude person, and does not even respect the etiquette of hospitality, like someone who thinks he is at home and does not respect the guests.”

Ait Ali, who then took over the portfolios of industry and mines, and then industry, revealed important information about the movement of the French ambassador Driencourt and the way he blackmailed Algerian officials with a visa. The minister wrote in a lengthy post on his Facebook page about the aspects of this diplomat who represented his country twice in Algeria, saying: “I have an experience with him that proves that he is lying at several levels and files, especially the visa file that he used as a tool of blackmail and bait for those he thinks are fools because they are Africans.”

The important information provided by Ait Ali comes only days after Driencourt’s article in “Le Figaro” newspaper, which was offensive to Algeria and full of false speculations, and from what Ait Ali said in his publication, “He asked for an interview with the Minister of Industry on the first days of my accession to the position, and he was received after receiving several ambassadors from other countries, even from Western Europe, which is in line with our legitimate interests in creating a real economy that serves the country more than its own country… He had several files that were not agreed upon, including pure economic and legal disputes, we used to see that they were all in their material interests.

Ait Ali provides an important detail in Driencourt’s modus operandi, which is “catching” some officials and bargaining with them by granting them a visa, and confirms in his post, “With regard to the visa file, I expressed to him my astonishment that he proposes to a minister who has nothing to do with the file at all, and in the context of a conversation about financially disputed files. And legally, it has nothing to do with the movement of people in both directions.” And he continues, “It was he who used the file as bait or evasion, and not the Algerian party, whatever it was, and it seems that even what he said about the previous visa applications is questionable, or emanates from the same attempt to link his requests.” With visas as collective or individual bribery, for whoever sees in his country the center of the earth, according to his claim.”

Ait Ali asserts that the French ambassador dealt with him with files outside the technical issues of concern to the Ministry of Industry, including memory, where he employed the phrase “the common past.” Between us in any case, especially the resolution of these files, except as a matter of recognizing that that past is continuing and not the past.

Ait Ali continues to reveal more secrets of that meeting that he had with the former French ambassador to Algeria, and he says, “He touched on issues outside the schedule of the interview, such as movement and stability, and the answer was that he was talking to one of those who were in the early stages of the movement before they entered him and his compliance on the line to divert the destination.

Ait Ali talks about personal aspects of Ambassador Driencourt, which made him judge him as “a rude person, who does not even respect the etiquette of hospitality, like someone who thinks he is at home and does not respect the guests”.