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Presidents Macron and Tebboune reiterate their commitment to work together
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Apr 1, 2025
Relations between Paris and Algiers, which had significantly deteriorated in recent months, are now warming. On Monday, the French and Algerian presidents decided to resume dialogue and restart cooperation on security and migration issues. Emmanuel Macron urged his counterpart to show 'clemency' towards the writer Boualem Sansal. France24 International Affairs Editor Philip Turle explains.
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French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with his Algerian counterpart on Monday
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The discussion which has been described by Paris as long, frank and friendly comes as relations between the two sides sink to new lows
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Last week, a Franco-Algerian writer in his mid-70s whose battling cancer was sentenced to five years behind bars for undermining Algeria's territorial integrity
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Ties have also been fraying over Algiers' refusal to take back migrants expelled from France
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We can now bring in France 24's International Affairs editor, Philip Terl, to talk more about this
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Philip, what exactly did these two leaders talk about? Well, things really couldn't have got any worse between France and Algeria over the past few months
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and there have been some pretty violent gibes on the part of certain French ministers
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and the fact that Algeria has refused to really hold any discussions with France at all over the past few months
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something had to break and this phone call I think was a way of that happening and even
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the Algerian President Abdulmanjid Tebun has said that Emmanuel Macron is the only point of
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reference from ending French Algerian ties so this is a necessary phone call I think that
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one can say now that I think both leaders are trying their hardest to make ends meet
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to turn their backs on the quarrels that have been rife over the past few months
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and looking forward to building a new relationship. It was called a long, frank and friendly phone call between the two men
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A new ambitious bilateral partnership will be created as a result of all that
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It's all positive vibes coming out from both capitals. But the bottom line is Algerian France don't see eye to eye on many things
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and it all blew up this time round over France recognition of Moroccan supremacy over the Western Sahara much of the anger of Algeria which backs the Polisario Front
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And that is where this current standoff started. And then it blew up because France was blaming Algeria for not taking back
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some of its nationals who have been served deportation orders, even put in planes and flown back to Algeria's
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the Algerian authorities refusional. and then they were flown back to France again
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And one of them was a terrorist responsible for an attack in Moulouse on the 22nd of February
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when one person was killed. He was sent back. Algeria refused to take him in
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And now he was sent back to France. So all of these episodes summed up a very complicated relationship between the two countries
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which has a lot of its roots in bitterness in Algeria over the colonial rule of France
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which ended in 1962. Yeah. And the French think that the Algerians
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in many cases are still blaming France for their woes today, even though the leaders weren't alive during the colonial period
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So can things be mended? Do you think after this phone call? It's difficult to say, when you look at the last three standoffs
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that have happened between France and Algeria, there was one in 2021, another one in 2022, one in 2021
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the relationship between the two presidents wasn't enough to lead to another standoff
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had very bitter remarks from the French Interior Minister Bruno Rettayo who was accusing Algeria
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of wanting to humiliate France. Well, I think that there is certainly a feeling by both sides that this can't go on and there
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is going to have to be some leeway somewhere to get this relationship back on the road as
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best it possibly can. But I think we're still quite a long way from a smooth and harmonious relationship between
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France and Algeria. We'll see how things pan out between the two sides
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