Relations between Algeria and its former coloniser, France, have rarely been straightforward.
After hitting a low point in July when France supported Algeria’s regional rival Morocco over its claim to the disputed territory of the Western Sahara, relations appeared to be recovering.
But then the April arrest in France of an Algerian consular official along with two other men for alleged involvement in the kidnapping near Paris of Algerian government critic Amir Boukhors has triggered a new wave of tensions.
So why are diplomats now being expelled, and what does this mean for relations between Algeria and its former coloniser?
Let’s break it down:
Who is Amir Boukhors?
Boukhors, or Amir DZ, is an Algerian online influencer and critic of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune with more than 1 million subscribers on TikTok.
The French government gave Boukhors political asylum in 2023.
But as far as the Algerian government is concerned, he’s a fraudster and a “terrorist”, who they’ve been seeking to extradite from France since 2016.
Algeria has tried to extradite Boukhors nine times. All attempts have been declined by France.
Why would an Algerian consular official allegedly want to kidnap him?
Speaking to the newspaper Le Parisien in an interview published on April 9, Boukhors said that on returning to his home in Val-de-Marne near Paris during the evening of April 29, 2024, he was stopped by an unmarked car with flashing lights.
Four men in civilian clothes handcuffed him and threw him into the vehicle.
“They first told me that an Algerian official wanted to talk to me, that that was why they were taking me. Then they told me the plan had changed and that I was going to Amsterdam,” Boukhors told the newspaper.
Boukhors said he was then forced to swallow sleeping pills and was held in a “container” for more than 27 hours before being released without explanation.
A subsequent investigation by France’s counterespionage agency uncovered information leading to the arrest on April 11 of three men with a fourth still reportedly at large.
No information has been released about two of the men. However, the third was an Algerian consular employee, French officials said.
Algeria issued a statement the following day strongly denying its official’s involvement and protesting the person’s arrest “in public … without notification through the diplomatic channels”.
The statement denounced what it charged was a “far-fetched argument” based “on the sole fact that the accused consular officer’s mobile phone was allegedly located around the home” of Boukhors.
All three suspects were later charged with “kidnapping or arbitrary detention … in connection with a terrorist undertaking”.
What was the diplomatic response?
On April 14, Algeria announced that 12 French consular officials had 48 hours to leave the country.
The statement, read on public television, confirmed the expulsions had been ordered in response to France’s arrest of the Algerian official.
According to the statement, the arrest had been intended to “humiliate Algeria, with no consideration for the consular status of this agent, disregarding all diplomatic customs and practices”.
France responded in kind the following day, expelling 12 Algerian consular officials from its territory and recalling its ambassador from Algiers.
A statement from the office of French President Emmanuel Macron described the Algerian decision as “incomprehensible and unjustified” and said Algiers should “resume dialogue” and “take responsibility for the degradation in bilateral relations”.
Why have relations between France and Algeria historically been poor?
France colonised Algeria for 132 years, killing Algerian civilians and creating a class structure in which European settlers and their descendants were on top.
The French refused to leave Algeria, considering it an integral part of France. It was only after a war of independence that France finally left in 1962. Algeria is still referred to as the “country of a million martyrs” because of the number of people killed by France during the fight for independence.
But the dispute has not ended there. The issue of the Western Sahara is also causing tension, not just between France and Algeria but also across North Africa.
Western Sahara – a disputed territory in northwestern Africa – is at the centre of the poor relations between Algeria and Morocco. Rabat claims the territory as its own and occupies the majority of it while Algeria supports the pro-independence Polisario Front and has taken in tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees.
What has France’s position on the Western Sahara been?
France has largely backed Morocco – despite the United Nations not recognising Rabat’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara. And last year, Macron said France’s position was that it supported Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
At the time, Algeria voiced its “deep disapproval” of France’s “unexpected, ill-timed and counterproductive” decision to endorse Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara and recalled its ambassador.
However, relations between the two were thought to be improving since then.
Speaking in early April after a series of talks intended to restore relations after the rift, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said: “We are reactivating as of today all the mechanisms of cooperation in all sectors. We are going back to normal and to repeat the words of President Tebboune: ‘The curtain is lifted.’”
But the Boukhors case and the diplomatic expulsions that have followed it have made it clear that the curtain has fallen right back down.
