In the crisis with France, the only culprit is Bruno Retailleau, according to Algeria. What is he criticized for? For what reasons? Where do the very tense tensions come from between the two countries? 20 minutes take stock.
What happened?
The crisis between Paris and Algiers began last summer, after the announcement by Paris of a reinforced support for a plan of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty for Western Sahara, where Algiers supports the separatists of the Polisario Front. Algeria then withdrew its ambassador to Paris. Since then, other cases have pointed out the bilateral relationship, such as the arrest in November in Algeria of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal and bibbilles on immigration. And in all these cases, a constant: the criticisms of Algiers against Bruno Retailleau, accused of wanting to “torpedo” relations with Paris.
The last attack on the Interior Ministry dates back Monday. It was the arrest of an Algerian consular agent, accused of the removal of an Algerian influencer exiled in France, who set fire to the powders after a start of lull. Algiers expelled 12 French agents in retaliation, to which Paris replied by returning 12 Algerian consular agents and recalling for consultations the French ambassador to Algiers.
An “unworthy act”, castigated the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which awarded it to the French Minister of the Interior, believing that he intended to “lower” Algeria. By press release, the Algerian authorities criticized the minister’s “distressing” attitude, accusing him of “barbouzeries for purely personal purposes”.
Bruno Retailleau “carries the whole of the turn of the turn that relations between Algeria and France take when they had just started a phase of decline thanks to the telephone interview” between the Algerian and French presidents, insisted the ministry. He assured that “any other new attacking action by the French Minister of the Interior will receive (IT), on the basis of reciprocity, a firm and adequate response”.
But why is Retailleau the target of Algiers?
Since he was minister, Bruno Retailleau “has very singularly targeted Algeria”, establishing “an showdown” with this country, explains the teacher in geopolitics Adlene Mohammedi. The Algerian power seized it to make it in turn “a target”, he adds.
“A way of not (target) the entire French state” and “to keep a kind of room for maneuver” to say: “We want to maintain a discussion channel with the Elysée and the Quai d’Orsay, but everything related to the Ministry of the Interior is a problem for us,” he continues.
The former Algerian minister and diplomat Abdelaziz Rahabi wonders about X as for the distinction made by “a part of (his) compatriots” between Bruno Retailleau and Emmanuel Macron. He does not believe “a divergence of fund” between the two men, “but rather in a wise distribution of roles”, in “Good Cop, Bad Cop” mode.
International relations researcher Abdellah Akir also judges “difficult to say that Retailleau acts alone, without the approval of the president”. That Algeria is to blame the Minister of the Interior is “a message to the French President so that he would take the measure that he will judge appropriate to dismantle the mines posed by the Minister on the path of appeasement,” said Abdellah Akir.
For the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly, Bruno Fuchs, “in Algeria, the position vis-à-vis France is not homogeneous”. On the one hand, “there are the proponents of the dialogue line, on the other the proponents of an extremely hard line (which) try to torpedo the return to normalization,” he said. A plausible hypothesis, according to Adlene Mohammedi, even if the Algerian system, according to him, so as to be “illegible”.
How does Bruno Retailleau do it?
“I am targeted and I believe that it is quite new that a foreign regime targets a minister,” reacted Bruno Retailleau on Tuesday evening. Figure of the French right and in the campaign to take the head of the Les Républicains party, the latter made the voice of a line of firmness against Algeria, in particular on migratory issues.
For him, it is “unacceptable, really unacceptable that France is a playground for Algerian services”, about the diplomatic crisis with Algeria. Bruno Retailleau considered that the Elysée’s response, “appears (SSAIT) completely appropriate”.
French government spokesperson Sophie Primas assured Wednesday that he “was (Vait) no re-backing business”. She added that the minister was “completely independent” of the legal proceedings behind the new mulch between Paris and Algiers. The day before, Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Foreign Affairs, had already said that “Bruno Retailleau has nothing to do with this judicial affair”, while insisting on the independence of French justice.
Our file on Bruno Retailleau
Despite these new tensions, “contacts are maintained” and Paris wishes to “return to appeasement” with Algeria, French diplomatic sources provided on Monday.
