ALGIERS (Reuters) – Emmanuel Macron on Saturday concluded a three-day visit to Algeria under the sign of “friendship” and “new ties” by signing a “joint declaration in favor of a renewed partnership” between Paris and Algiers.
“We have laid the foundations (…) for a new cooperation”, welcomed the French head of state at the end of the signing ceremony in the capital alongside his host and Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
“We have built the foundations of what is to come,” said Emmanuel Macron, referring to the desire for dialogue on sensitive subjects such as memory or immigration, while adding that “a lot remains to be done”.
The relationship between Algeria and France, a former colonial power, is more than a bilateral relationship, but a “relation of intimacy” which should be strengthened by a “permanent dialogue”, continued Emmanuel Macron.
“I think that this rapprochement will allow us to go very, very far”, commented for his part Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who welcomed an “excellent, necessary and successful” visit.
The links between Paris and Algiers had suffered a serious cold snap last year after the dissemination of remarks made by the French president during a meeting with “grandchildren” of the Algerian war, in which he accused the Algerian “politico-military system” for having rewritten the history of colonization in the “hate” of France.
But Emmanuel Macron intended to turn this stay “towards the future” despite the tensions of the past. He went Saturday morning to Oran, the former capital of raï, to pay tribute to Algerian youth.
In particular, he visited the lair of raï Disco Maghreb, a legendary shop and label for this Algerian musical genre popularized in the 1980s recently brought up to date by the Franco-Algerian producer DJ Snake, in a clip viewed by tens of millions of times on the internet.
The French president, in a white shirt and tie, then offered a quick walkabout in a city street, punctuated by a few hostile slogans.
Sixty years after the independence of Algeria, the Head of State had invited Friday to look “in the face” the common history between Algeria and France, emphasizing to prefer “truth” and “recognition” to a choice between “pride and repentance”.
On the occasion of his visit, Emmanuel Macron announced the creation of a mixed commission of historians which will make it possible to “look at the whole of this historical period which is decisive for us, from the beginning of colonization to the War of Liberation , without taboo”.
(Lamine Chikhi and Mimosa Spencer report, written by Michael Georgy and Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)