French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said he is ready to travel to the African country to address all issues
French President Emmanuel Macron will meet with members of his government in the coming days to decide on a response to Algeria’s “hostile posture,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said.
The diplomat made the remarks at a meeting with lawmakers in the French National Assembly on Wednesday.
Relations between France and the North African nation have deteriorated since July, when Macron reversed his country’s decades-long diplomatic stance and endorsed a controversial Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Algiers, which supports the Polisario Front, a separatist group demanding self-determination for the Sahrawi people, said the French decision violates international law and UN efforts to “complete the decolonization” of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony.
Algeria has since recalled its ambassador to Paris, and in October, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune canceled a long-delayed official visit to France due to the feud, while accusing Paris of colonial-era genocide.
Algeria reportedly barred French companies from competing for a wheat import contract last October, and warned participants not to supply grain produced in France. On Wednesday, Reuters cited French officials as saying that Algiers is adopting a policy that aims to wipe its former colonial power’s economic presence from the country. According to the news agency, trade between them has fallen by up to 30% since the summer.
In December, the African state’s government summoned French Ambassador Stephane Romatet over alleged efforts by French intelligence to destabilize Algiers, according to local media.
Last week, Algeria’s Foreign Ministry criticized Paris for its “unacceptable and blatant interference” after Macron said Algiers was “dishonoring itself” by detaining French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal. President Tebboune has labeled Sansal, who has been held since late last year for “attacking territorial integrity,” as a French “imposter.”
On Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Barrot told lawmakers that Sansal’s detention was “a violation of the texts that govern” Algeria-France relations and that the charges against him are “completely unfounded.”
“The reasons that led the Algerian authorities to adopt a hostile posture have nothing to do with Algeria or its interests,” he said.
“France is a sovereign country, which chooses the terms of its alliances with other countries. What France intends to build with Morocco does not detract from what it intends to build with Algeria,” the minister added.
He offered to travel to Algiers to address “all issues, beyond those that have been in the news in recent weeks.”
“Neither Algeria nor France have an interest in building lasting tension between our two neighboring countries,” Barrot declared.
