Algiers Will Not Take “The First Step” to Ease Tensions With Macron, Assures President Tebboune
Emmanuel Macron sparked the wrath of Algiers after comments reported on October 2 by the daily “Le Monde” accusing the Algerian “politico-military” system of maintaining a “memorial rent”.
New speech on the tensions between Algeria and France. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune warns, Saturday, November 6, that he will not take “the first step” to try to calm the tensions caused by Emmanuel Macron’s critical remarks on the Algerian nation. “I have no regrets. Macron has reopened an old conflict in a completely useless way,“ denounces the Algerian leader in an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel (in German).
“If [far-right polemicist Eric] Zemmour says something like that, whatever, nobody cares. But when a head of state declares that Algeria was not a separate nation, it is very serious, “he lambasted. Under these conditions, “I will not be the one who will take the first step”, warns the Algerian head of state. “Otherwise I will lose all the Algerians, it is not about me, but about a national problem”, estimates the president before continuing: “No Algerian would accept that I contact those who insulted us”.
“A national problem”
Emmanuel Macron sparked the wrath of Algiers after comments reported on October 2 by the daily Le Monde accusing the Algerian “politico-military” system of maintaining a “memorial rent” by serving his people an “official history” which “does not rely on truths”. 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”.
Is there a prospect of an outcome with France? asks Spiegel? “No, if the French wants to go to Mali or Niger now, they will just have to fly nine hours instead of four”, retorts Abdelmajid Tebboune, assuring however that an “exception” would be made for “the rescue of injured people”.
