 Paris must show a language of truth, courage and clarity on its diplomatic choices to end the territorial discord over the Sahara, said political scientist Mustapha Tossa on Sunday.
"France and Morocco have this in common, it is that they embody the perfect scarecrows that the Algerian soldiers use to smoke up public opinion and maintain their grip on political and economic power. To get out of this, Paris needs a language of truth, courage and clarity on its diplomatic choices in the region which definitively closes the territorial discord over the Sahara ”, affirms the editorialist in an analysis of the recent tension between Paris and Algiers following the surprise postponement of a visit by Prime Minister Jean Castex to Algeria.
The crisis between Algiers and Paris has recently taken on unprecedented proportions which are surprising in their magnitude. Both the general tendency was towards appeasement and reconciliation, underlines the political scientist in this analysis under the title "Morocco at the heart of the tension between Paris and Algiers", published on Atlasinfo.
However, "in the midst of a power crisis in Algiers, contested by an entrenched social and political movement, President Emmanuel Macron wished to express his support for President Abdelmajeed Tebboune by giving credit to the post-Bouteflika period. Support so visible and so assumed that Macron has drawn the wrath of the icons of Hirak who reproached France for its complicity with the autocrats of Algiers ", underlines the editorialist.
Moreover, adds Mustapha Tossa, as a sign of good will, Emmanuel Macron has launched a process of memorial reconciliation with Algeria led by historian Benjamin Stora. A process which in no way claims to solve the problems with a magic wand but which has the gift of opening up construction sites.
"Everything was therefore for the best in a relationship between a French democratic state and an Algerian dictatorial state precisely in the name of reason of state and their superior interests. Until the brutal announcement of the postponement sine die of the visit of the French delegation led by Prime Minister Jean Castex A gaping and unprecedented crisis has opened up between Algiers and Paris to the point of raising fears of the worst, "says the political scientist.
"Many hypotheses have been evoked to justify this cancellation and this sudden rise in tension between Algeria and France. The first was the disappointment of the Algerians to see the French ministerial delegation shrinking like a skin of sorrow as a sign of French disinterest in this special Franco-Algerian relationship. The second was the absence of this French delegation of the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin to whom we attribute a very pronounced pro-Algerian tropism ", said Mr. Tossa, adding that" the pundits of the Algerian regime s 'were preparing to ask Mr. Darmanin to take police and legal actions against Algerian opponents who are very active on social networks and who by their actions regularly dismantle the false traps of a beleaguered regime.
But the real reason for this Algerian anger and bitterness towards Paris, asserts Mustapha Tossa, "undoubtedly comes from certain signals which herald a totally pro-Moroccan position in the matter of the Sahara conflict". Because, recently and in full preparation for this visit by Jean Castex, the party of President Emmanuel Macron, "La République en Marche" decided to open a section in the mythical city of Dakhla in the Moroccan Sahara.
At the announcement of this unprecedented decision, "Algerians almost vanished. They know that the presidential party would never have taken such a decision with so much political and diplomatic significance without the explicit green light of the government. President Macron himself. Algerians concluded that French diplomacy is preparing to move up a gear to recognize full sovereignty of Morocco over its Saharan provinces as the American administration had done. both the Moroccan diplomatic triumph and the fate of this conflict between Morocco and Algeria, more than forty years old ”, analyzes the political scientist.
"France qualified by an Algerian minister" of traditional and eternal enemy "of Algeria finds itself having to manage an unprecedented crisis in its relation with this country", affirming that France is "currently cornered by Algerians to bang on the table and to clarify the stakes of its relations with Algiers ".
“France was already constrained in its expression on Algeria in the name of a common past whose accounts have not yet been settled.
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