Matthieu Bock (special envoy to Algeria), edited by Juliette Moreau Alvarez
modified to
4:34 p.m., October 09, 2022
On the eve of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s trip to Algeria, discussions around tourism and oil are already well underway. On the one hand, France, which wants more Algerian gas. On the other, Algeria, which wants to diversify and develop its tourism thanks to French visas.
On Sunday, Elisabeth Borne is due to start an official two-day trip to Algeria. A way to materialize the good intentions praised by Presidents Macron and Tebboune in August. On the program for the Prime Minister, hydrocarbons and visas. Paris wants more gas and oil and Algiers wants more visas in France. The two countries are therefore seeking to get closer. Algeria is even seeking to open up more and diversify its income: this week, the country therefore organized a tourism fair in its capital.
French visas for Algerian oil
If the Minister of Tourism, Yacine Hamadi, spends his whole days wandering the aisles of the fair to promote Algeria, it is because he believes that his country must stop depending only on oil and gas. “Experience has shown us that instability is lacking in the price of oil,” he said. “You saw at the start of the pandemic, we sold oil at less than its cost price. We want to stop relying on hydrocarbon revenues. So there is the tourist segment, agriculture and industry…”
This is a major challenge for Algeria, which is hampered by the price of tourist visas, which cost a hundred euros. The opening of the country is therefore still complicated today. During this meeting, the priority for Paris and Algiers will once again therefore remain Algerian oil against French visas, explains Kader Abderrahim, lecturer at Sciences Po. “For the question of tourism, I believe that it is very premature On the Algerian side, there is the question of visas. And then on the French side, I believe that gas is going to be one of the big issues”, he thinks before noting that “the president of Engie accompanies the Prime Minister”.
And proof that France expects a lot from this meeting, seventeen ministers will make the trip, more than a third of the French government.