This is what the French Interior Minister said about the deportation of nationals under the 1968 agreement

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez intervened to put an end to the intentional and misleading exploitation by the right and far-right of certain provisions of the migration agreement signed between Algeria and France in 1968, aimed at provoking the French public and attempting to drag them into a debate about Algeria, coinciding with the intensifying debate over the upcoming French presidential elections next spring.

The intervention of Laurent Nuñez on this issue came in response to written question number 01567, registered on October 10, 2024, by Senator Fabien Genet of the right-wing “Republicans” party, a date that coincided with the escalation of the political and diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Paris, approximately two months after Algeria recalled its ambassador to Paris in protest against the position of French President Emmanuel Macron on the Western Sahara issue.

The senator attempted to include a provision that does not exist in the 1968 migration agreement, which relates to Algeria’s obligation to receive its nationals who have been issued expulsion orders from French territory.

The question stated: “Through this agreement (1968), Algeria works to facilitate the return of nationals expelled from French territory, and grants the necessary consular permits to fulfill the obligations to leave French territory”, claiming that Algeria suspended the issuance of these permits, in violation of the agreement’s terms, after the beginning of 2023.

The French Interior Minister’s response, which came on the third of this month, as published in the Official Journal of the French Senate, revealed the extent of this senator’s ignorance of the mentioned agreement’s provisions, or that he did so intentionally for the purpose of misleading and mobilizing support to cancel this agreement or at least review it as demanded by right-wing and far-right politicians, as the member of the French government confirmed that what the question contained was incorrect.

Nuñez said in the response: “The Franco-Algerian agreement signed on December 27, 1968, concerning the movement, employment, and residence in France of Algerian nationals and their families, does not include any reference to the necessity of Algeria’s commitment to receive its nationals expelled from French territory.”

The French official explained that the legal text relating to the right-wing senator’s question is the consular convention signed between the two countries on April 27, 1994, where cooperation between France and Algeria was organized regarding the identification of Algerian nationals and the return of foreigners under a delegation procedure defined by a cooperation agreement protocol in the field of issuing consular laissez-passer.

The French Interior Minister noted that the decline in the number of deportees from France to Algeria was recorded starting from 2020, and justified this by the health crisis (Corona pandemic) that swept the world at the time, which continued until the following year, pointing out that the gradual return to a normal situation began in March 2022, which saw an increase in the number of consular permits issued by Algerian diplomatic missions distributed across French territory, until 2024, which coincides with the most complex political and diplomatic crisis to hit bilateral relations since independence, which caused the number of consular permits to drop to its lowest levels.

In the French Minister’s view, the resumption of consular cooperation between the two countries began with his visit (Laurent Nuñez) to Algeria in February of this year, which enabled the recovery of consular permits for the deportation of Algerian nationals, which remains lower than it was in previous times.

In what appeared to be an attempt to please right-wing and far-right circles, the French Interior Minister spoke about the appointment of a committee tasked with reviewing the 1968 agreement, “in implementation of the instructions of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister,” noting that the goal of this review is “to obtain common positions on all pending issues.”

For weeks, the political and media scene in France has witnessed a suspicious focus on the 1968 agreement, started by former French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, head of the right-wing “Horizons” party and a prominent candidate for the French presidential elections, who called for a review of the 1968 agreement, an issue addressed a few days ago by the Rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, Chems-eddine Hafiz, who expressed his concern over Algeria and Islam becoming daily topics in French political and media debates.