Diplomatic spat escalates as Algeria orders French embassy officials to leave
After several months of diplomatic crisis, the worst since the end of the colonial era, tensions between Algeria and France are at breaking point after authorities in Algiers expelled 12 French embassy officials.
The measure on Monday is in response to the detention of three Algerian nationals in France, including a consular official.
According to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, the Algerians are suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of an Algerian dissident in France in April 2024.
The move has been described by analysts as unprecedented and the spat, the worst since Algeria's independence in 1962 after a bloody war of independence.
Barrot called on the Algerian authorities to "abandon these expulsion measures" and warned that if the decision were upheld, France would have "no choice but to respond immediately".
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On Friday, three Algerians, including a consular employee, were indicted in Paris. Among the charges they faced were the arrest, kidnapping and unlawful confinement of Amir Boukhors, an opponent of the Algerian government exiled in France.
They are also accused of "criminal terrorist conspiracy".
Boukhors, who has lived in France since 2016, was granted political asylum in the country in 2023. The 41-year-old is followed by over a million people on TikTok under the pseudonym Amir DZ.
Known for his videos criticising the Algerian state and his revelations about the corruption involving the military establishment, he is believed to be one of the most listened-to voices in the Algerian diaspora.
In his home country, Boukhors is accused of fraud and terrorist offences.
Algerian authorities have issued nine international arrest warrants for him and French courts refused his extradition in 2022.
According to his lawyer, Eric Plouvier, the influencer was the target of "two serious assaults”, one in 2022 and another in April 2024, when he was kidnapped in the southern suburbs of Paris, before being released the next day.
His lawyer accused Algeria of "carrying out violent action on French soil through intimidation and terror".
Algeria first "tried to neutralise him with arrest warrants", then when they refused to extradite him "wanted to come and get him directly on French soil by kidnapping him," he told AFP.
Boukhors's name recently appeared in another judicial investigation, this one opened by the Paris prosecutor's office.
In this case, an employee of the French Ministry of Economy was indicted in December, suspected of having provided information on Algerian dissidents, including Boukhors, to "a person of Algerian nationality working at the Algerian consulate in Creteil," according to the prosecutor's office.
‘Torpedoing’ diplomatic efforts
On Saturday, the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to the arrest of its nationals by denouncing an "inadmissible judicial cabal".
"This judicial turn, unprecedented in the annals of Algerian-French relations, is not the result of chance" but is taking place "with the aim of torpedoing the process of reviving bilateral relations", it said.
Just a week before, during Barrot’s visit to Algiers, the two countries had signalled their desire to "turn the page on current tensions" after an eight-month crisis that had pushed them close to a diplomatic break.
That latest row in the tormented diplomatic relations between France and its former colony had begun in late July 2024, when President Emmanuel Macron gave his full support for Morocco's claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara.
The territory, considered by the UN as "non-autonomous", is controlled for the most part by Morocco but claimed by the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi independence movement supported by Algeria.
The move infuriated Algiers, which announced the "withdrawal with immediate effect" of its ambassador to France.
Relations have deteriorated ever since, souring mainly over migration issues and the imprisonment of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, sentenced in Algeria to five years in prison for "attacking territorial integrity".
On 31 March, Macron and his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, decided during a telephone conversation to relaunch bilateral relations and reestablish cooperation in fields such as security and migration.
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