Access statements have given way to caution. Paris has lowered the tone of a notch in recent weeks against Algiers. The discretion is to put tensions around the question of Western Sahara and the arrest of the writer Franco-Algerio Boalem Sansal. In particular, on the side of Beauvau, the quai d’Orsay, for the voice of Jean-Noël Barrot, which had measured more.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, in favor of a tough line proclaimed the need to establish “a balance of power” against Algiers in recent months. It was verbally to the front “not admitting that France is humiliated” by the refusal of the Algerian authorities to accept their nationals expelled from the French territory, as well as for the imprisonment and conviction of Boalem Sansal despite the calls for their release.
But this week, the minister put water in his wine. Your will? “Do not spoil any possibility, even the slightest opportunity, to make sure it is released (that Boalem Sansal)” admits in France Inter.
“I only remember that he is 80 years old, who is sick (he has prostate cancer, according to his relatives, note of the editor),” said Bruno Retilleau. The previous day in BFMTV, he refused to declare more statements on the subject, only consenting to “that the relations between France and Algeria were polar.”
Online presidential grace
The 80-year-old Franco-Algerio writer, imprisoned for more than seven months, was sentenced by the Algiers court on Tuesday, July 1, a five-year prison sentence for “damage to the national unit.” He was criticized for statements in October 2024 with the borders of the French right -wing media, where he considered that Algeria had inherited under the French colonization of territories belonging to Morocco so far.
His arrest on November 16 had aggravated an already acute diplomatic crisis between Paris and Algiers, which had exploded after recognition at the end of July by Emmanuel Macron of a low autonomy plan “Moroccan sovereignty” for the territory in dispute of the west of Sahara has supported the separatists of Polisario against Morocco for 50 years.
After the announcement of his sentence, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, “outraged” of this decision “considered” incomprehensible and unjustified. “
“The Algerian authorities face an option, the responsibility of humanity, of respect, allowing our compatriot to be released and cared for for taking into account their state of health and their age,” he added in response to the questions of the agents of the National Assembly.
The goal of Paris? Get Algerian presidential forgiveness for the writer. Prime Minister François Bayrou was limited to this request on Tuesday. “Now that there has been conviction, we can imagine that the measures of grace are taken, especially according to the health of our compatriot,” he said.
Bruno Retailleau was content to follow the steps of the Prime Minister together with which he was from the operating center for the interdepartmental management of crisis for the heat wave. Without an incisive word.
Bruno Retailleau, silent not to set fire to dust
For Naoufel Brahimi el Mili, author of France-Algeria, 60 years of secret stories Contacted by BFMTV.com, the explanation of the “humor variations” of the government is next to the elysée. “I think Emmanuel Macron advocated the cessation of the verbal escalation so as not to contaminate the celebrations of July 5”, which mark the 63th anniversary of the independence of Algeria.
On this occasion, “as tradition wants, Emmanuel Macron will send a message to the Algerian president, but this year will be particularly warm,” said Franco-Algerias relations specialist. And this, hoping to obtain presidential grace of Abdelmadjid Tebboune for Boalem Sansal. “On that date, there is a ritual of grace in Algeria,” explains the historian.
And the slightest statement by Bruno Retilleau could offend Algerian power and destroy this hope of presidential grace. The Interior Minister has become his black beast. After the arrest of an Algerian consular agent in Paris last April, suspected of being involved in the kidnapping at the end of April 2024 in the French soil of the Algerian influence Amir Boukhors, Algiers had accused the Interior Minister of “Barbalteros for purely personal purposes.”
The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had tried Bruno Retailleau “completely responsible for the shift that relations between Algeria and France take when they had just started a description phase.”
The Algerian press had not saved the French minister either. Daily life, close to power, has portrayed the portrait of a minister with “sickly anti-algerianism and using the most ill methods to achieve their personal ambitions” with “the taste for provocation in the veins.”
Bruno Retailleau had estimated that it was the great goal, but had not disappointed, convinced that it was necessary to maintain “a balance of power.” According to Naoufel Brahimi El Mili, the silence recommended by Emmanuel Macron is also a “way of rethinking its Interior Minister who, like other ministers, has allowed us to denounce the agreement of 68, a treaty that is the responsibility of the jurisdiction of the President of the Republic.” “We can also see an explosion of pride,” he said.
Discretion about the conviction of journalist Christophhe Gleizes
The discretion is to put in another file: the conviction of the French journalist Christophe gleizes this Sunday at seven years in prison, particularly for “apologies for terrorism.”
Following the revelation of this case by reporters without borders (RSF) and its employer, the Press Group, which denounced a “unfair” sanction, the French Foreign Ministry “strongly regrets the great conviction.” Without calling him to free him.
“It’s the Mininum service,” says Naoufel Brahimi el Mili.
If Christophe Se Glees, an independent journalist specialized in football, had been arrested on May 28, 2024 and then placed under judicial supervision for 13 months with the prohibition of leaving the territory, so far this case had become public.
“I think that Quai d’Orsay wanted to take his hand in a file that at first seemed simple. But after summer (and tensions around the Western Sahara, the editor’s note) has turned back,” he judges the specialist. “Therefore, Quai d’Orsay had to advise silence. An instruction that was respected by his family and Bruno Retailleau,” abounds to emphasize “the diplomacy strategy” followed in this file.
“It depends on President Macron whistle the end of the party”
The calm for the deadline on July 5, the expected day of presidential grace? This is what Bruno Retilleau has been able to say on Tuesday repeating not wanting to “spoil any possibility for Boalem Sansal to be launched” “by the end of the week.”
But the Naoufel Brahimi specialist is not of this opinion that considers the voice of sustainable appeasement. “For a long time, there was an escalation without a retirement chain. Is the objective of the breakdown of relationships?” Ask the historian. In recent months, in addition to verbal fair, the unprecedented diplomatic crisis has been marked by expulsions of diplomats on both sides, restrictions for diplomatic visas and freezing of all cooperation.
“Neither France nor Algeria have interest there to be a failure,” he said. “It is up to President Macron to whistle the end of the party.”
Source: BFM TV
