The dangerous game of France and Algeria – Liberation
Explaining that he did not count « Overbidding » In the crisis open between France and Algeria, François Bayrou nevertheless started this Wednesday A new escalation. Leaving an ephemeral inter -ministerial committee devoted to immigration, the Prime Minister has announced a « Research » rapid and immediate « All of the agreements that have binded the two countries since 1968 », Just that. Last month, however, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, had sought to be reassuring, believing before the National Assembly that « Neither France nor Algeria is in interest in that a sustainable tension is installed ». The exacerbation of the crisis proves that this reading was entirely exact and at the same time – as the other would say – completely wrong.
As demonstrated Our reportsthe inhabitants of the two countries actually have everything to gain a decrease in tensions, economically and culturally. But the two governments are under the supervision of populists who have everything to lose. This is evidenced, among other things, on the Algerian side, the cruel and arbitrary imprisonment of the French writer Boualem Sansal And the systematic and fatal blocking of the expulsions of Algerian nationals suspected of terrorism, leading irreparably to the act of some of them, as proved on Saturday The attack in Mulhouse.
On the French side, we fall head of the first in the trap traced by the Algerian nationalists by publicly feeding discord, announcing today still restrictions to come in the granting of visas, thus especially sanctioning the elites and young French culture enthusiasts. This impetuous stiffening, caused by the rightization of the political scene and by the loss of the art of diplomacy, can only strengthen populists of the other side by rekindling the Algerian susceptibilities, and so on, from overbidding.
