Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune demanded from Paris on Sunday “total respect for the Algerian state”, stressing to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that “history cannot be falsified”.
Mr. Macron sparked the anger of Algiers after remarks, reported Saturday, October 2 by the French newspaper Le Monde, accusing the Algerian “politico-military” system of maintaining a “memorial rent” by serving his people a “history official ”which“ is not based on truths”.
On the day of October 2, Algiers decided to recall “immediately” its ambassador to Paris, Mohamed Antar-Daoud, and, as another retaliatory measure, banned, in the process, the overflight of its territory to French military planes. of the anti-jihadist operation Barkhane in the Sahel.
The return of the Algerian ambassador “is conditioned on respect for Algeria, total respect for the Algerian state,” Mr. Tebboune told Algerian media on Sunday, in his first public reaction to the words of the French president.
Asked whether the closure of airspace to military aircraft is “final”, Mr. Tebboune explained that “in diplomatic relations, there is nothing irreversible”. But “currently we are attacked in our flesh, in our history, in our martyrs, we are defending ourselves as best we can”, he said.
“Relations with France are the responsibility of the people and of history. History cannot be falsified, ”continued Mr. Tebboune, in remarks deemed rather dry by observers.
“The State is standing with all its pillars, with its power, the power of its army and its valiant people,” continued President Tebboune, also supreme chief of the armed forces and Minister of Defense.
For “the rest, it is their internal affairs”, he said in an allusion to possible “electoral” aims of Mr. Macron’s critical remarks. “France must forget that Algeria was once a French colony”.
According to Le Monde, the French president also affirmed that “the construction of Algeria as a nation is a phenomenon to watch. Was there an Algerian nation before French colonization? That is the question”. This is one of the passages that most shocked Algerian public opinion.
Last Tuesday, President Macron assured that he wanted “appeasement” on the memorial subject between France and Algeria, calling for “walking together” and “recognizing all memories”.
“Memorial bankruptcy”
Ignoring these statements, the influential head of Algerian diplomacy Ramtane Lamamra, traveling to Mali on Tuesday, blamed Mr. Macron for “memory bankruptcy”, affirming the need for some foreign leaders to “decolonize their own history”.
The tensions between Algiers and Paris coincided with strong tensions between France and Mali, Algeria’s neighbor and another former French colony.
Mr. Macron also provoked the ire of Turkey with his statements, repeated in Le Monde, where he qualified the Ottoman domination over Algeria as colonization. Ankara denounced “populist” statements.
After questioning the existence of an “Algerian nation”, Mr. Macron added: “Me, I am fascinated to see the capacity that Turkey has to make completely forget the role it has played. in Algeria and the domination it exercised ”.
Sensitive to memorial issues, Turkey, the heir to the Ottoman Empire which controlled present-day Algeria for three centuries, repeats over and over again that it has “no stain such as colonization or genocide” in its history.
In Algeria, many commentators had interpreted Mr. Macron’s words as having an “electoral” objective, as the April 2022 presidential election approached. “The policies in France are in the midst of the campaign, Macron too,” said AFP Hassen Kacimi, Algerian expert in migration issues.
Other experts like Hasni Abidi, director of the Cermam study center in Geneva (Switzerland), rather evoked a “disappointment” of Mr. Macron at the “unenthusiastic return of Algiers to its memorial recognition site”. Paris hoped to find common ground around a report given to Mr. Macron by French historian Benjamin Stora.
Mr. Tebboune recalled that Algiers does not demand “repentance”, but “recognition” of the crimes perpetrated in 130 years of French colonization.
He said in 2017 he “heard President Macron say that what happened in Algeria is worse than the Shoah” and that “crimes against humanity” have been committed.
“He was right. Algeria is 5.630 million “victims, affirmed Mr. Tebboune, stressing that” history does not work according to whims and according to circumstances”.
