Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Macron comment triggered a crisis
France and Algeria settle the dispute
Algeria’s President Tebboune is so annoyed by a statement by French President Macron that he is withdrawing his ambassador from France. After three months, the two politicians have apparently overcome the diplomatic crisis. The Algerian diplomat returns to Paris.
The serious diplomatic crisis between Algeria and France appears to have been resolved after three months. The Algerian Presidential Office announced the return of the Algerian Ambassador Mohamed Antar-Daoud to Paris on Thursday. Algiers withdrew the ambassador on October 2nd because Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune was angry about statements made by his French colleague Emmanuel Macron.
Tebboune received the ambassador on Wednesday to announce the resumption of his duties. The reason for the dispute with Macron were statements by the French head of state. According to a report in the daily newspaper “Le Monde”, he indirectly said that Algeria was resting on memories after independence in 1962 and that the country was ruled by a “politico-military system”. He had also raised the question of whether the North African country had been a nation before the French colonial era.
As a result, Algiers not only dismissed the ambassador, but also stopped the overflight rights for French military jets over the Sahel zone. Tebboune said in early November that he would not take the “first step” to ease tension. He took the view that Macron had “unnecessarily” revived an “old conflict”.
On November 9th, Macron announced through an advisor that he regretted the “polemics” and the “misunderstandings”. He has “the greatest respect for the Algerian nation” and “its history”. At the beginning of December, the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian went to Algeria. He advocated a “pacified relationship” and demanded that both countries focus on the future. An agreement for the resumption of flights by French jets through Algerian airspace was not concluded.