The Algeria-France diplomatic crisis began in April after Paris detained an Algerian official. Algeria expelled 12 French diplomats in response. Tensions grew with Macron’s support for Morocco over Western Sahara. Algeria’s diaspora gains influence as France risks losing economic ground amid worsening bilateral ties.
A new phase in the French-Algerian relations is taking a route that is anything but making progress, nor has there been any concrete advance. President Emmanuel Macron, a president who showed political willingness to find a way to break through and set the relations between the two nations “natural.” Yet, historical, geographical, cultural and demographic norms are not enough; following the French hardcore discourse led by French-Algeria nostalgic and the extreme-right system’s state of denial on the one hand, the “en même temps’” (at the same time) governing doctrine that is haunting the French president leading style whether at home or abroad on the other hand. In this sense, Macron is facing tenacious critics from the right and the far-right parties, as well as from the left. As a result, his presidency is often characterized as that of a lame duck, constrained by growing domestic security challenges, public debt, political instability, and the banalization of the extreme-right hate speech and Islamophobia rhetoric.
Strategic Miscalculation
As for the Western Sahara question, Algiers looks at as the oldest conflict in the African continent from the international legality perspective, is a question of decolonization, only the rights of the Sahrawi people to self-determination will bring peace and security in the sub-region in the North Africa in accordance with the UNSC 384-1975; this is Algiers’ position on the complex issue of Western Sahara dossier. In 2024 Paris did surprise Algiers, following the French president diplomatic shift toward the Western Sahara question, Paris has had a balanced position until l2024, in which marked the beginning of a complicated cycle that led to the recent diplomatic crisis between Paris and Algiers. In a letter addressed to King of Morocco Mohammed VI, President Emmanuel Macron stated that “the present and the future of Western Sahara [were] part of Moroccan sovereignty.”[1]
Without explicitly recognizing the Moroccan authority in the territory, which is 80% occupied by Morocco, the French president deemed that the autonomy plan submitted by the kingdom to the United Nations in 2007 to affirm its sovereignty over Western Sahara was the “only basis for achieving a just, lasting, and negotiated political solution in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions.”[2] Whereas the UN has been advocating for a self-determination referendum since 1975, and was enhanced by the UNSC in 1991 under the MINURSO for a ceasefire to organize a referendum, the ceasefire ended in 2020.
Up until now, Paris had a balanced policy on the Western Sahara dossier, despite Paris’ historical and ideological leaning towards a pro-Moroccan stance. In this stance, Algiers interpreted this diplomatic move as another layer of provocation since the election of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in 2019, marking a new phase of Algeria-France relations based on a neck-to-neck approach. In this regard, Algeria’s new foreign policy doctrine, multilateral and sovereign diplomacy behavior is making the Parisian lobbyists in Paris nervous because they are losing their interest and influence in Algeria, linguistically, intellectually, and business.
Complexity in Politics and Economics
There is a deep political consciousness in Algeria about France’s mastery of Algeria’s politics in the last three decades. Two generations of Algerians were born after 1962, are today behind their president’s bold France policy and beyond, in spite of socioeconomic challenges, large majority of the youth are still looking for a better life abroad, though political openness, freedom of civil society actors’ organization, and political parties activities and participation are genuinely follow-up, following the results of the 2019 peaceful and mosaic Hirak, a peaceful sociopolitical mobility that led to end decades of political degradation and economics stagnation.
It’s the economy, stupid!
What could be the future of the “neutral shift” relations between Paris and Algiers? The Algerian community in France is gradually becoming a serious socio-economic, scientific, and cultural component that is intruding on the Algeria-bashing lobby in the extreme-right media, despite Algerian diaspora socio-political, ethnic, and intellectual heterogeneity. The Algerian diaspora in France should continue and sustain its fundamental role in the relations between the two nations. particularly, in the economic sector by opening up new ways of commerce exchange and small business creativity, like technology services. This would complement the traditional economic exchange, like the gas and automobile sectors, which have been representing the backbone of the economic relations between Algeria and France.
Alarming figures have surfaced that France is losing the large Algerian market; on this stance, French wheat went from 9 million tonnes to zero tonnes in 2025. Is this due to a strategic shift in commercial exchanges between Algiers and Paris or an unofficial boycott? The quick answer is that the latter sounds more plausible. French cars also went from 180,000 vehicles sold in 2012 to only 10,000 in 2024, all imported by individuals. French brands are progressively absent in the official market, leaving Chinese, Italian cars, and other European brands to take the lead. In the red meat sector, French beef, for instance, Algeria imported up to 70,000 heads per year; Algeria’s imports stopped completely following the appearance of a virus in France in 2023. Today, Algeria is importing from Spain and Brazil. Another agro-alimentaire sector is concerned with milk; in 2024, Algeria reduced its imports of French milk powder by 25% and concluded a first supply contract with the African country Uganda, for 2,000 tonnes, a strong signal of economic diversification. However, this decline is not cyclical, but is part of a well-studied strategy used by Algiers, reducing its dependence on France, diversifying its partners, moving towards African markets, and strengthening local production through major industrial projects. In this regard, in 2024, trade between France and Algeria fell by 4.3%, reaching 11.1 billion euros. Also, in the first quarter of 2025, French exports to Algeria fell by 21%, a historic record.
Because of the ongoing toxic campaign in France on migrants, political Islam, and integration/assimilation/insertion, etc., all these societal themes are affecting the progress of the two nations’ relations. Algiers, however, is trying to reframe its France policy, a shifting policy based on equal cooperation that could encourage economic development, enhance military and intelligence cooperation between the two nations’ national security concerns, and national interests.
National Security Challenges
France, like Algeria, is concerned by its national security, a security parameter that France wants to fight abroad, in the African Sahel, which Algeria is fully involved in — on this matter, Paris is looking at Algiers as a reliable partner to fight transnational terrorist groups, human trafficking, and migrants smuggling. Algiers’ regional power aims at the region’s stability, security, and development process, playing the role of a credible broker between local leaders and European, Russian, and American special forces in the region. Algiers has been continuing to coordinate with the French Intelligence, despite the endless turmoil in the tumultuous African Sahel, in time, where Paris lost its military and linguistic influence among the new leaders, elite, and population in the sub-region.
Another important determinant in France-Algeria new phase relations since the election of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in 2019 and re-election in 2024, is that Algiers, which is taking into consideration the role of Türkiye in the region, has emerged as a solid strategic partner with Algiers. So, Algiers-Ankara strategic partnership leaves the anti-Algeria lobby in Paris wondering.
In conclusion, Paris-Algiers relations are not going to get warmer on the eve of a crucial presidential election ahead in 2027 France, where the extreme-right hate speech and Islamophobia discourse and acts are on the rise – in an open race, the question of race and politics would be in the center of the political “debate” so Algeria, like Arabs, Islam, and immigration; these themes who are directly linked to French malaise, according to the extreme-right mainstream media, political spectrum, and voters. In this regard, France has to deal with a new Algeria, a stabilizer, security, and development force in its regional and sub-regional geopolitics landscape, implementing a multilateral and sovereign diplomacy paradigm.
[1] See. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/moroccan-king-invites-macron-state-visit-after-wsahara-position-2024-07-31/
[2] See. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2025/04/18/why-are-diplomatic-relations-between-france-and-algeria-so-strained_6740364_8.html
