In October 2021, Algiers banned French military planes from flying over its territory, following comments by Emmanuel Macron in the newspaper “Le Monde”.
A French plane was able to fly over the territory of Algeria with the formal agreement of the local authorities, for the first time since October, indicated Thursday, February 17 to AFP the staff of the French armies.
“The request went through the French Embassy, like every time a military plane flies over foreign territory,” the same source explained, without specifying what the Airbus A330 MRTT was carrying. “The Algerian authorities had warned us that it was possible,” added the staff, suggesting that other overflights should be similarly accepted in the future.
This overflight authorization comes as Paris and its European partners formalized their military withdrawal from Mali on Thursday after nine years of anti-jihadist struggle led by Paris, leading other foreign actors present in the country to openly question their commitment.
Algiers, which shares 1,400 kilometers of borders with Mali, took an active part in the peace agreement signed in 2015 with the independence rebellion to end the war in Mali and still participates in meetings of the Monitoring Committee (CSA ).
“Ascending dynamic of appeasement”
In October 2021, Algeria had de facto prohibited the overflight of its territory to French military planes, at the same time as it requested the “immediate recall” of its ambassador to Paris.
She then reacted to comments by Emmanuel Macron in the newspaper Le Monde. The French president had affirmed that Algeria, after its independence in 1962, had been built on “a memorial rent” maintained by “the politico-military system”, questioning the existence of an Algerian nation before French colonization.
The two countries have since been working to renew their relationship. The last element in the date of the bilateral rapprochement, the embassy of Algeria in France hailed ten days ago the “ascending dynamic of appeasement” between Algiers and Paris.
On Thursday, French Chief of Staff Thierry Burkhard said he met with his Algerian counterpart, General Said Chanegriha. “Exchanges on the security situation in the Sahelo-Saharan strip, in particular on the terrorist threat. Common desire to strengthen cooperation between our two armies,” he said on his Twitter account.