This visit, which has been postponed several times, now depends “on the program” proposed by the Élysée, said the Algerian president, adding that a state visit “is not a tourist visit”.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on Saturday, August 6 that his state visit to France was “ still maintained ” but depended “ on the program ” of the Élysée, specifying that a “ State visit has conditions ” and “ is not a tourist visit ”. “ We are awaiting the program for this visit from the French presidency. It is still maintained, ”said the head of state during a television interview broadcast on Saturday evening.
We did not agree on the program for this visit. A State visit has conditions and must lead to results. This is not a tourist visit,” he added.
The visit, first scheduled for early May, had been pushed back to June, Algerians fearing it would be marred by May Day protests against France’s hotly contested pension reform, sources said. At the time, Élysée pointed out that the two parties were ” in discussion to find a date that could be suitable “.
But Abdelmadjid Tebboune has still not made this visit which was to confirm the improvement between the two countries after a number of diplomatic crises. On the other hand, he went to Russia from June 13 to 17 where he was welcomed with great fanfare by Vladimir Putin, Algiers and Moscow having long-standing privileged relations. “Our visit to Russia yielded concrete results,” Tebboune stressed, adding that state visits to China, Italy or Portugal were also successful.
In Russia, in addition to the signing of a “deep strategic partnership declaration”, which notably provides for the exchange of intelligence and information on “threats to national security”, eight other agreements in the areas of justice, telecommunications, agriculture, culture, water resources and space exploration for peaceful purposes, were signed.
The visit to France “must be based on a program on which the two countries agree (…) We can open new pages and close old ones”, continued Tebboune.
He affirmed that the visit would take place when the presidency of the French Republic proposes a program worthy of a state visit.
Asked in mid-June by the French television channel LCI about this visit, the head of the French diplomacy Catherine Colonna replied: “I hope so, we are working on dates” but “they are not fixed”.
The relationship between Algeria and France, a former colonial power (from 1830 to 1962), is very turbulent and full of misunderstandings and things left unsaid. The question of the memory of colonization by France in the 19th century and of the Algerian war (1954-1962) constitutes one of the great sensitive points of the relationship between Paris and Algiers, at the heart of several disputes in recent years.
