“Promising prospects for improving a special partnership” for Abdelmajid Tebboune, “a new page being written in the bilateral relationship” for Emmanuel Macron. The Algerian and French presidents sealed their reconciliation on Thursday in Algiers after months of estrangement. After a meeting of more than two hours for Emmanuel Macron’s first visit to Algeria since the start of the new five-year term, the two leaders showed courtesy and optimism during statements to the media. Abdelmajid Tebboune, who had gone to the airport in the afternoon to welcome his guest, welcomed the “encouraging results” of the discussions which make it possible to “draw promising prospects in the special partnership that binds us”.
He also underlined the determination of Paris and Algiers to “move forward” and “intensify efforts to enhance bilateral relations”. France and Algeria will relaunch several intergovernmental committees, particularly in the economic and strategic fields. They will increase cooperation at all levels and trade and there will be “an intensification of high-level visits”, said Abdelmajid Tebboune. The visit coincides with the 60th anniversary of the end of the war and the proclamation of Algeria’s independence in 1962.
Creation of a “mixed commission of historians”
In his speech, the French president underlined the desire of the two countries to look to the future and “work together on this “common past (…) complex, painful”. Algiers and Paris will create “a joint commission of historians” in order to “look at the whole of this historical period”, “from the beginning of colonization to the war of liberation, without taboo, with a desire (…) for full access to our archives”, said Emmanuel Macron.
According to Abdelmajid Tebboune, the meeting between the two leaders was also “an opportunity to discuss the security and political situation of common interest at the regional and international level”. From Algiers’ point of view, this visit marks “a recognition of Algeria’s pivotal role in the region” and a “return in force of Algerian diplomacy on the international scene”. “We exchanged our points of view, particularly on the situation in Libya, Mali, the Sahel and Western Sahara which require joint efforts to consolidate stability in the region,” said Abdelmajid Tebboune.
Algerian gas is “really not the object of the visit”
“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”, analyzes the Algerian political scientist Mansour Kedidir. Algeria plays a central role in the region because of its thousands of kilometers of borders with Mali, from where the French army has just withdrawn, Niger and Libya. It is also close to Russia, its main arms supplier, which is playing a growing role in Africa.
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 also 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”, assured the Elysée, even if the boss of the energy giant Engie, Catherine MacGregor, is part of the delegation.
honorable amends
This is the second time that Emmanuel Macron has visited Algeria as president, after a first visit in December 2017. Relations between the two countries were then in good shape with a young French president, born after 1962 and freed from the weight of history, which had qualified French colonization as a “crime against humanity”. But they quickly came to an end, overtaken by memories that are difficult to reconcile after 132 years of colonization, a bloody war and the departure of a million French people from Algeria in 1962.
The excuses expected by Algiers for colonization never came. 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 caused a serious rupture. The Elysée tenant has since made amends and the two presidents have gradually restarted the bilateral partnership.
The delicate issue of visas
But the delicate issue of visas granted by France, the number of which has been halved, has continued to weigh on mutual relations in particular. Emmanuel Macron alluded to it on Thursday, referring to decisions taken for “chosen mobility for our artists, our athletes, our entrepreneurs, our academics, our scientists, our associations, our political leaders allowing us to build more common projects”.
In the streets of Algiers, expectations were in phase with the desire of the authorities for a relationship “of equals”. “Macron is told ‘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 .
Source: Europe1
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