Algiers (AFP)
Broadcast on French television and denounced by Algiers, "Algeria, my love", a documentary on youth and the "Hirak", an unprecedented popular anti-regime movement, sparked controversy on social networks, even within "Hirakists" .
Five young Algerians, three men and two women between 20 and 30, perfectly French-speaking, were interviewed by Mustapha Kessous, a French journalist of Algerian origin, to "tell their stories and tell their country".
"Their individual destinies now espouse a cause greater than them: the Revolution," said the synopsis of the 70-minute documentary broadcast Tuesday evening by the public service channel France 5.
The testimonies of these young people, from Algiers, Oran and Tizi Ouzou, who speak a lot about the frustrations of the Algerian youth, are interspersed with images of the demonstrations of "Hirak", an unprecedented protean movement which shook the Algerian power during more than a year until its suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- "Reducer" -
It is obviously the link between the remarks made by these young people - in a very free tone, without taboo (in particular sexual) - who spoke ultimately little about politics, and the political and social demands "Hirak" which aroused the anger of many Internet users. After the initial outcry, the controversy swelled between the pros and cons, the latter largely in the majority.
Neither the director nor the public group France Télévisions, of which France 5 is one of the channels, wanted to respond to the controversy.
The case prompted an "immediate" recall for consultations from the Algerian ambassador to Paris, Salah Lebdioui, the foreign ministry denouncing "an attack on the Algerian people and its institutions". A way also to timely recover the dispute, mischievously come from Internet users.
An Algerian journalist has nicely summed up the scandal: "At 5 pm, all the posts of the Hirakists invite to put on France 5. 9 pm: all the posts of the Hirakists insult France 5".
If many have nuanced their critics, believing that this report "serves" the Hirak, that it is too "reductive" and demonstrates a "misunderstanding" of Algeria, other internet users have aggressively criticized the five young people interviewed.
Some of them had to make adjustments and even give up their accounts on social networks.
Sonia, the psychiatrist interviewed in the documentary, closed her Facebook page after clarifying that she "assumed" what she had said.
However, she said she regretted that the film was presented as "mainly focused" on "Hirak" - "which explains the strong reactions but in no way justifies the violence".
- "Hate messages" -
In a testimony posted on a friend's Facebook page, Anis, the Algerian metal fan student, said that he had received "many hate messages and threats since the documentary was broadcast".
He says he was surprised to see that the director's only responses to his responses were "those related to sexual frustration and personal freedom".
Anis considers herself "doubly victim", both of Mustapha Kessous who would not have respected her "private life" and of the "democrats with whom I walked" who attacked him on the networks.
What most of the supporters of "Hirak", who are attached to the peaceful character of the movement, criticize are not so much these testimonies which undoubtedly represent a part of the youth but the reference to the popular uprising.
Some internet users have nevertheless chosen humor, the hallmark of "Hirak", to evoke turbulent Franco-Algerian relations: after "the fan affair", a pretext at the origin of French colonization, when a consul of France had been blown away by the dey of Algiers in 1827, there is now "the affair of the pastis".
An allusion to a scene from the documentary where we see young people, girls and boys, drinking pastis and discussing sexuality.
Others, more prosaically, wonder how the Algerian ambassador to Paris, called back urgently, would be able to return to the country in the absence of regular flights because of the coronavirus pandemic.
© 2020 AFP