The thaw will wait. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ruled out during a television interview on Saturday the idea of a visit to France, which he considered humiliating in the context of once again very tense relations between the two countries. “I will not go to Canossa”launched Tebboune, re-elected president on September 7 with 94.65% of the votes. Popularized by German Chancellor Bismarck at the end of the 19th century.my century, the expression “go to Canosa” It means to go and ask for forgiveness. It refers to the step that he was forced to take in the XImy century the Germanic emperor Henry IV, who went to the Italian town of Canossa to implore Pope Gregory VII to lift the excommunication that he had imposed on him.
The visit of the Algerian president, constantly postponed from May 2023, was last scheduled between the end of September and the beginning of October 2024. But relations between Algeria and France cooled again after the announcement, at the end of July, of the Paris’ support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Algiers immediately recalled its ambassador to France and reduced its diplomatic representation, maintaining only one charge d’affaires.
Referring to French colonization (from 1830 to 1962) and the question of memory, the Algerian president estimated that “Algeria has[vait] been chosen for the great replacement, the truly great replacement.”consisting of “hunt the local population to recover a European population with massacres, with a genocidal army”.
A “genocide” during the colonial period
“I do not accept lies about Algeria. We had a population of about four million and 132 years later we were barely nine million. “There was a genocide.”stated Mr Tebboune. “We ask for the historical truth”the Algerian president insisted, accusing a “hateful minority” in France to block any progress in the memorial file.
Addressing the issue of French nuclear testing in Algeria, Mr. Tebboune told France: “If you want to be friends, come clean up the nuclear test sites!” » Between 1960 and 1966, France carried out seventeen nuclear tests at various sites in the Algerian Sahara. Documents declassified in 2013 revealed a still significant radioactive fallout, stretching from West Africa to southern Europe.
Mr Tebboune also mentioned the 1968 Franco-Algerian agreement which grants special status to Algerians in terms of rights of movement, residence and employment in France. It became a “Standard behind which the army of extremists marches” right-wingers in France, who seek to repeal it, he estimated. In December 2023, the French National Assembly rejected a text calling on the French authorities to denounce the agreement.
Signed in 1968, when France needed help for its economy, this agreement excludes Algerians from common immigration law. Since then they have no residence permit in France, but “residence certificates”. They can establish themselves freely to pursue a commercial activity or an independent profession and have access to a ten-year residence permit more quickly than nationals of other countries.
