Algiers: Abdelmajid Tebboune welcomes new “relationship of trust” between Paris and Algiers

The tension is easing. Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune has hailed the new “relationship of trust” between France and Algeria and his personal “mutual friendship” with Emmanuel Macron, a new sign of a thaw in the often tumultuous bilateral relationship.

In an interview published Friday in Le Figaro, the head of state called for a “new era” in relations with France six months after his French counterpart’s visit to Algeria. And in turn announced a state visit to France in 2023.

“A Certain Complicity”

“We have a certain complicity” with the French head of state, said Abdelmajid Tebbun. “I see him as the embodiment of a new generation that can save the relationship between our two countries,” he added. “Of course, we had, like me, unsuccessful formulas, but for the first time it seems to me that there are such trusting relations between our two countries,” the Algerian president further assessed.

Paris and Algeria found the way to thaw relations during President Macron’s trip to Algeria last August. The heads of the two states renewed their cooperation in a joint statement signed with great fanfare, paving the way for, inter alia, visa liberalization granted to Algeria in exchange for increased Algerian cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration.

Back to normal for visas

The issue poisoned bilateral relations after Paris halved the number of visas issued to Algeria, which was deemed insufficient to re-admit its citizens expelled from France. But the case was settled two weeks ago when France announced, through its interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, that it would return to the norm of issuing visas to Algerian citizens after Tunisian visas at the end of August and Moroccan ones.

In October, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Born, accompanied by about fifteen ministers, traveled to Algeria to cement this reconciliation around economic projects and a “renewed partnership.”

The memorial issue around the French colonization (1830-1962) and the bloody war of liberation caused a serious quarrel between the two countries in the fall of 2021 after the remarks of Emmanuel Macron, to which he then made amends. “France must free itself from the complex of colonialists, and Algeria from the complex of colonialists,” the head of the Algerian state noted on this occasion, considering his country “a victim of tenacious prejudices, which are more the result of ignorance than ill will.”