French President Emmanuel Macron begins a three-day official visit to Algeria on Thursday, intended to turn the page on the estrangement and “rebuild” a relationship that remains marked by the weight of the past.
Accompanied by a delegation of more than 90 people, including seven ministers, the Head of State will be welcomed when he gets off the plane in Algiers by his counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, at 3:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. GMT).
The two presidents will then go to the Monument des Martyrs, a high place of Algerian memory of the war of independence (1954-1962) against France.
This will be followed by a tete-a-tete at the presidency and a dinner at the People’s Palace in honor of Emmanuel Macron, in which his entire delegation will participate.
The Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, son of Jews born in Algeria, tested positive for Covid-19, had to give up the trip at the last minute.
The prospect of his coming, unprecedented in Algeria, had been criticized by the leader of the Algerian Islamists, Abderrazak Makri and had made people cringe on social networks in a country which strongly supports the Palestinian cause.
The visit coincides with the 60th anniversary of the end of the war and the proclamation of Algeria’s independence in 1962.
But the president said he was above all determined to direct it towards “youth and the future”. He will meet young Algerian entrepreneurs at length on Friday before going to Oran (west), the country’s second city, renowned for its spirit of freedom, embodied by raï.
This is the second time that Emmanuel Macron has visited Algeria as president, after a first visit in December 2017, at the start of his first five-year term.
Relations between the two countries then looked promising with a young French president, born after 1962 and freed from the weight of history, who had described French colonization as a “crime against humanity”.
– “Political necessity” –
But they quickly petered out, overtaken by memories that remain difficult to reconcile after 132 years of colonization, a bloody war and the departure of a million French people from Algeria in 1962.
Still a presidential candidate, Mr. Macron has certainly qualified colonization as a “crime against humanity”. During his first five-year term, he multiplied memorial gestures.
But the apologies Algiers expected for colonization never came, thwarting the French president’s memorial outstretched hand and adding to misunderstandings and frustrations.
In October 2021, comments by Emmanuel Macron accusing the Algerian “politico-military system” of surfing on “memorial rent” and his questions about the existence of an Algerian nation before colonization ended up consummating the rupture.
The Elysée tenant has since made amends and the two presidents have decided to put the partnership between the two countries back on track.
“Given the risk of instability in the Maghreb, the conflicts in the Sahel and the war in Ukraine, improving relations between France and Algeria is a political necessity,” said Algerian political scientist Mansour Kedidir.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Algeria, the leading gas producer in Africa and one of the top ten in the world, has been in great demand by Europeans in a hurry to reduce their dependence on Russian gas.
Algerian gas is “really not the object of the visit” and there will be “no announcements of major contracts or major negotiations of this type”, however assures the Elysée.
– “He changed” –
The two presidents will notably discuss the situation in Mali, from where the French army has just withdrawn, and the growing Russian influence in Africa.
Algeria plays a central role in the region due to its thousands of kilometers of borders with Mali, Niger and Libya. It is also close to Russia, its main arms supplier.
The issue of visas granted by France will also be at the heart of the discussions, Emmanuel Macron having decided in 2021 to halve them in the face of Algiers’ reluctance to readmit undesirable nationals to France.
In the streets of Algiers, the French president is expected this time with circumspection.
“In 2017, before he was president, he spoke well, he made his visit, but just after his return to France, he changed, he gave another speech,” laments Othmane Abdellouche, 62, computer science doctor.
“Macron we say + welcome to Algeria, if the interests are common, we agree, if they are only on the (French) side then it’s no”, adds Remdhan Elbaz, 60, a retiree.
