The Algerian bet of Emmanuel Macron: illusions, risks, and errors \ Newslooks Washington DC \.
The Thomas More Center website published a lengthy article under the titled “The Algerian bet of Emmanuel Macron: illusions, risks and errors” by Xavier Driencourt, who served as French Ambassador to Algeria from 2008-2012 and 2017-2020.
In his article, the writer discussed the lines and intersections between the administration of French President Emmanuel Macron and Algeria, and the reasons and motives that led to the postponement of the Algerian president’s visit to the Elysee Palace.
Ambassador Xavier Driencourt started his article saying that:
“At the start of summer 2023, a visit to France by Algerian President Abdelmajdid Tebboune was to take place. Already postponed twice, made risky after a hectic trip to Portugal (May 22-23) and delicate by his visit to Moscow (June 14-16), will this trip finally take place?
Hard to imagine in the current context. The last official visit to France by an Algerian head of state dates back to the year 2000, with the visit (particularly important at the time) of Abdelaziz Bouteflika. In 2010, there was talk of a new trip to Paris by the Algerian president, but relations between the two countries, already strained, finally prevented it from taking place.
Is such an official visit necessary, is it useful, when Emmanuel Macron made a three-day stay in the country less than a year ago and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne also went to Algiers in mid-October 2022, accompanied by fifteen members of its government?
Why receive President Tebboune, when just a few weeks ago the Algerian press and officials violently attacked France and its president, not hesitating to describe as “barbouzerie” the consular protection granted to Amira Bouraoui, a French activist -Algerian organization of human rights, and of “barbouzes” the French official leaders?
Why finally receive in Paris the Algerian head of state who congratulates himself during his recent stay in Moscow on his friendly relations with Vladimir Putin and who the day before restores the famous third anti-French verse in the national anthem?”
Read the full article
The Thomas More Institute is a free and independent thinktank, based in Brussels and Paris. It is both a laboratory of innovative solutions, a center of expertise and a relay of influence. The Institute’s approach is based on the values proclaimed in its Charter: freedom and responsibility, respect for the dignity of the person, subsidiarity, the market economy, the universal values which are the common heritage of European countries.
