After several months of crisis, French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Algeria from August 25 to 27, the Elysee Palace announced on Saturday August 20. The visit is intended to relaunch the partnership between the two countries. “This trip will help deepen the forward-looking bilateral relationship, (…) to strengthen Franco-Algerian cooperation in the face of regional issues and to continue the work of healing memories”said the French presidency.
Emmanuel Macron and his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, discussed this visit during a telephone interview on Saturday. The French Head of State thanked his interlocutor for his “invitation to visit Algeria”. He also presented “his condolences to President Tebboune, to all the Algerian people and to the families and loved ones of the victims of the terrible fires of the last few days”.
The gigantic fires that ravaged northern Algeria on Wednesday and Thursday killed 37 people, according to an official report. These fires were almost all extinguished on Saturday, firefighters said. “The Head of State informed his counterpart of France’s availability to provide Algeria with land and air resources to deal with it”communicated the Elysee.
second trip
Emmanuel Macron will make, from Thursday to Saturday, his second trip as president to Algeria, after a visit of a dozen hours in December 2017 at the start of his first five-year term. He will travel to Algiers and Oran (west), said the Elysée.
This movement occurs at the end of a sequence loaded with symbols with the 60e anniversary of the Evian agreements (March 18, 1962), which put an end to more than seven years of war between Algerian insurgents and the French army, and the independence of Algeria (July 5, 1962) after thirty-two years of French colonization.
Paris and Algiers hope to turn the page on a series of misunderstandings and tensions that culminated in the recall of the Algerian ambassador in October 2021 after comments by the French president on the system “politico-military” Algerian and the Algerian nation.