As the 60th anniversary of the end of the Algerian War (March 19, 1962) and Algerian independence (July 5, 1962) approached, Emmanuel Macron stepped up to reconcile the two countries.
The French Prime Minister Jean Castex will visit Algeria this Sunday. It is a new stage in the bilateral rapprochement initiated by Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Abdelmajid Tebboune.
Jean Castex will co-chair with his counterpart Abdelaziz Djerad a high-level intergovernmental committee (CIHN), a body that meets regularly to take stock in particular of economic cooperation between the two countries.
However, this committee has not been held since December 2017 due to the popular protest movement of the “Hirak” which led to the fall of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019 and then to the health crisis linked to Covid-19.
Context of “warming” between the two countries
After tensions during the popular uprising of the Hirak two years ago, Emmanuel Macron opted for open support for President Tebboune, whose election at the end of 2019 was massively rejected by the population and who remains contested in the street, support which arouses criticism within the pro-democracy movement.
The Prime Minister’s visit is part of the re-engagement of the relationship desired by the two presidents, underlines Jean Castex’s entourage at the Hotel Matignon, welcoming the context of warming between the two countries.
However, it was delayed by the Algerian President’s hospitalization twice in Germany in late 2020 and early 2021 for complications related to Covid.
The meeting was finally scheduled despite the new wave of coronavirus, which fully mobilizes the executive and complicates any international travel, so as not to stand too close to the anticipated legislative elections scheduled for June 12 in Algeria.
Jean Castex wished to maintain it to testify to the commitment of France and to make a gesture of friendship towards Algeria, we note in Matignon.
“Gesture of friendship”
The two presidents have initiated a resumption of the Franco-Algerian relationship, in a new climate of confidence. This was to result in the resumption of bilateral contacts and in particular through this CIHN, it is added.
Due to the constraints of the health crisis, however, the visit will only last one day and the ministerial delegation will be smaller than in previous editions.
This will be the first real bilateral trip for Jean Castex since his installation in Matignon in July 2020. He has so far only visited Brussels and Chad for a visit to the French forces deployed in the Sahel.
The two Prime Ministers will address all aspects of the bilateral relationship – economic, security, education, and culture – and will sign agreements in “some areas of cooperation”, it was indicated in Paris without further details.
Reconcile memories
As the 60th anniversary of the end of the Algerian War (March 19, 1962) and Algerian independence (July 5, 1962) approached, Emmanuel Macron undertook a series of symbolic acts in order to reconcile the memories and to sketch a normalization in a relationship that remains complex and passionate.
He recognized in particular, on behalf of France, that the lawyer and nationalist leader Ali Boumendjel had been tortured and murdered by the French army and decided to facilitate access to classified archives on the Algerian war.
Algiers, for its part, demands the restitution of archives linked to colonization and all the light on the Algerians who disappeared during the war – which it estimates at 2,200 – as well as compensation for the victims of French nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara.
Emmanuel Macron’s gestures are part of the memorial recommendations of historian Benjamin Stora whose report was criticized in Algeria because he does not notably recommend an apology from Paris.
The Algerian head of state reaffirmed Sunday that the national memory cannot be the object of renunciation or of bargaining.
