The French Foreign Minister met Tuesday, Algeria President. This visit aims to “soothe” a relationship in crisis for two months.
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After verbal de-escalation, the recovery of physical contact. The French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian went to Algiers, Tuesday, December 8, to meet President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in the hope of initiating reconciliation with Algeria after two months of diplomatic crisis, the more virulent for fifteen years. “I hope that our two countries together take over the path of a soothing relationship,” said Le Drian at the side of his Ramtane Lamamra counterpart, adding that France and Algeria had to “look to the future. “.
The French minister emphasized “trust” to “renew” and “the deepening of our partnership” – described as “indispensable” -, as many words solemnishing the will of Paris to overcome recent sourness . This displacement in Algiers extends the hand stretched by the Elysee who had reported on 9 November, by the voice of a member of the presidential entourage, which Emmanuel Macron “regretted” “polemics and misunderstandings”.
The crisis had erupted five weeks earlier after the comments held at a meeting at the Elysée with “little children” of the Algerian war. The head of state mentioned a “political-military Algerian system” that would have been built on the “memorial annuity” and the “hatred of France”. He had gone so far as to interview the existence of “the Algerian nation (…) before French colonization”. Denouncing “irresponsible remarks”, Algiers had replied by recalling for consultation his ambassador to Paris and prohibits the overview of his airspace to the French military aircraft participating in the operation “Barkhane” in Mali.
a process long
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune then denounced In an interview at the German weekly Der Spiegel ” Insults “who” injured the dignity of Algerians “and belong, according to him , “The old colonial hatred”. It was necessary to go back to 2005 during the controversy triggered by adoption at the Bourbon Palace of an article on the “positive role of the French presence in North Africa” to find trace of such verbal acrimony between the two countries . The new pushing of fever was all the more paradoxical that Mr. Macron had put a point of honor to launch his project of “Memorial Reconciliation”, prior to his eyes to a sustainable standardization of the bilateral relationship.
The bursting of the crisis has abused a number of joint actions that Paris intended to lead with Algiers, particularly in the stabilization of the Sahelo-Saharan area where the files of Mali and Libya are a priority. “With a partner as essential as Algeria, one can not afford a long time to be in a degraded situation,” said the entourage of Mr. Le Drian. The boss of the Quai d’Orsay had already met with Mr. Lamamra on October 26 in Kigali on the sidelines of a meeting of members of the African Union and the European Union before finding him on 12 November in Paris during a International Conference on Libya. Tuesday’s visit to Algiers is only “the beginning of a process that will be long enough”, warns the entourage of the French minister.
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