Last day in Algeria for the French head of state. After months of diplomatic crisis, the French and Algerian presidents are expected to sign a joint declaration, testimony to a new dynamic in the relationship between the two countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron ends a three-day visit to Algeria on Saturday with a meeting with sportsmen and artists in Oran before returning to officially seal the relaunch of the bilateral relationship in Algiers.
The Head of State will first go to the port and the chapel of Santa Cruz on the heights of Oran, which offer a bird’s eye view of the bay of Algeria’s second city, bathed by the Mediterranean.
He will then go to the store of the Disco Maghreb label, emblematic of raï – musical current that became very popular in Oran in the 80s before conquering a worldwide audience – then will meet young people and sportsmen during a breakdancing demonstration.
The president, who arrived Friday evening in Oran, a city renowned for its open-mindedness in the west of the country, had dinner with the writer Kamel Daoud and other Oran personalities.
“Enthusiasm”
Before leaving Algiers, he had met young entrepreneurs and associations who questioned him about visa problems, the decline of French in Algeria and the memorial dispute between the two countries.
Algeria was colonized for 132 years by France before gaining its independence in 1962, after eight years of bloody war.
After months of diplomatic crisis, linked to this still painful past, the French and Algerian presidents Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced from the first day of Mr. Macron’s visit on Thursday a new dynamic in the relationship between the two countries.
They will seal it with the solemn signing of a joint declaration, a step added at the last minute to President Macron’s program. It will be, according to the Elysée, a “renewed, concrete and ambitious partnership”.
With Algeria, it is “a story that has never been simple. But which is and will remain, because we want it, a story of respect, friendship and, dare I say it, love. “, launched Mr. Macron on Friday, describing a partnership developed “in the enthusiasm of the moment”, during multiple interviews Thursday and Friday with Mr. Tebboune and his ministers.
It will be “a new partnership for and by youth”, anticipated the French president, already announcing the acceptance of 8,000 more Algerian students this year in France, who will join an annual contingent of 30,000 youth.
In addition to the memory file around French colonization, the issue of visas poisoned the bilateral relationship when Paris decided in the fall of 2021 to halve the number granted in Algeria, deemed not quick enough to readmit its nationals expelled from France.
“Wounded Memories”
It will be a question of fighting against illegal immigration but while easing the procedures for “families of dual nationals, artists, sportsmen, entrepreneurs and politicians who nourish the bilateral relationship”.
A joint commission of French and Algerian historians will also be created to “look” the entire period of colonization in the face, “without taboo”, announced President Macron.
From the left to the extreme right in France, political leaders were outraged by the president’s remarks or by the announcement of the creation of the commission, a sign that the wounds are struggling to heal in French society.
In 2017, Emmanuel Macron said “colonization is the first crime against humanity”, tweeted the boss of the socialists, Olivier Faure. But “in 2021 he wondered about the existence of an Algerian nation before colonization. The lightness of the treatment of the PR (President of the Republic, editor’s note) insults the wounded memories”.
For the deputy of the National Rally (extreme right), Thomas Ménagé, “the president went to bed” announcing the joint commission, and Algeria must stop “using this past so as not to be in real diplomatic relations and of friendship.”
In Algiers, too, the visit was not unanimous, with many Algerians waiting for a formal apology from Mr. Macron for colonization and for his remarks in the fall of 2021, doubting the existence of an Algerian nation before the landing of the French army in June 1830.
“History cannot be written with lies (…) one of the biggest lies is to say that Algeria was created by France? We were waiting for this gross untruth to be erased by Macron during this visit”, affirmed Le Soir d’Algérie published on Saturday, denouncing a lack of “courage of Macron” to “recognize his own faults and those of his country”.