The Algerian president estimated, in an interview to “Spiegel”, that his French counterpart had “wounded the dignity of Algerians” and was pessimistic about the perspective of an end close to the bluster between Paris and Algiers .
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Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune found “very serious”, in an interview at Spiegel appeared on Friday, November 5, the remarks by Emmanuel Macron involving the existence of the Algerian nation before French colonization. “We do not touch the history of a people, we do not humiliate Algerians,” said TEBBOUNE, referring to the interrogation made by the Head of State French – “Is that? There was an Algerian nation before French colonization? “- During an exchange on September 30 at the Elysee with young people from memory groups related to the Algerian war.
The words of Mr. Macron reported by Le Monde had triggered an open crisis between France and Algeria, which had immediately recalled for consultation his ambassador as a position in Paris and prohibits the overview of the Algerian airspace by French aircraft as part of Operation Barkhane in Sahel. This cold shot, the most serious for fifteen years between the two countries, had been preceded by a series of litigation around the issue of visas, the memory of the Algerian war, economic contracts and A French policy on Western Sahara, judged by Algiers as too pro-Moroccan.
Mr TEBBOUNE’s interview at Spiegel, directed on October 26 in Algiers, reveals how Mr. Macron’s comments will leave lasting traces in relations between the two countries and mortgage a resumption of short contacts. term. “I’m not going to be the first to take the step, otherwise I lose all the Algerians,” the Algerian president at the German weekly. “It’s a national problem, it is not a problem with the President of the Republic,” he added. No Algerian would only accept contact with those who formulated these insults. “” Mr. Macron injured the dignity of Algerians, he noted. We were not a people of sub-men, we were not nomadic tribes before the French come. “While Spiegel asked him if he asked him if he asked him if he existed a perspective that the bilateral crisis takes “end soon”, the Algerian head of state replied, “No”.
“for electoral reasons”
m. Tebboune felt that the words of his French counterpart are “part of the old colonial hatred”, even if he admitted that “Mr. Macron is far from colonial hatred”. “Why did he say it then?” He said, before answering himself: “He told it for electoral reasons.” “He took over the same speech the Journalist and author Eric Zemmour for a long time “, namely that” Algeria was not a nation and it is France that made it a nation “. “Unfortunately, Mr. Macron placed on the side of those who justify colonization by saying that.”
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