- Amelle, from Saint-Ouen, is stranded in Algeria and has no prospect of return.
- Faced with the silence of the consular authorities and the impossibility of boarding one of the five flights a week, she felt abandoned.
- Faced with the lack of income, she also faces health problems that have worsened due to a "state of intense stress".
If the end of confinement is advancing rapidly for many French people, for others, it is far from the end. This is the case of Amelle, a young woman of 33 years old, from Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) and currently stranded in Algeria. "I arrived in Algiers on March 11 with my mother and aunt for my grandmother's 80th birthday surprise," she explains. We were due to leave on March 21 but our flight was canceled a few days before. In fact, due to the coronavirus epidemic, Algerian airspace has been closed and maritime links suspended, until further notice.
Amelle then contacts Air France, who initially tells her that repatriation will be implemented. However, the embassy closed due to Covid-19 and only an emergency number remains, which the young woman calls, without much result. "In fact, the consulate sent us back to Air France when the company told us to go to the consulate," she said. Then to obtain a new plane ticket, the French authorities indicate that an SMS must be sent to Air France. But this Sunday, the consulate publishes on its site a press release where it is specified: "Due to the very large number of reservation requests received and being managed, the SMS registration service is temporarily suspended by Air France, in the 'awaiting the imminent re-establishment of an online reservation system. No other device should be used. " Back to square one.
Obscure criteria
Distraught and without information, Amelle went to Algiers airport to find out more. "There were several thousand people waiting in vain," she says. A station manager called the names of the people authorized to return to France in a huge hubbub, it was barely audible. But she still doesn't know how to be on this list of the lucky ones and lashes out at “obscure and unclear selection criteria”. "From one to two per week at the start of the crisis, the frequency of flights has recently been increased to five flights per week thanks to the efforts of the French and Algerian authorities and of Air France," said the consulate in a press release from May 8. "According to the embassy there would still be 31,000 French people in Algeria so before repatriating them all, it will take time," said the young woman.
But it is above all the health situation that most concerns the 30-something. “We are in a state of intense stress, my aunt is diabetic and my mother is undergoing treatment which does not exist here and myself under the effect of stress, I had health problems which worsened. As a result, the consulate put me on the priority 3 list without my knowing what it means. She also worries about the lack of income. "We consumed 300 euros off plan for me and my mother because of the calls to the consulate and Air France," she explains, to which must be added 700 to 800 euros for the four tickets I took and including I have still not been reimbursed. This confinement in Algeria also falls at the worst for Amelle's professional project. "I'm in the middle of a business creation and I'm completely paralyzed," she adds. I didn't take my computer with me so I can't move on at all. "
Incendiary comments on Facebook
Obviously, Amelle is not the only one in this situation and it is enough to consult the inflammatory comments below the publications on the social networks of the French Embassy in Algiers to have a glimpse of the ambient tension. It is also to try to reassure and defend themselves that the embassy published a long press release this Friday. She underlines that “the staff of the French Embassy and of our three consulates general remained mobilized 7 days a week. They answered more than 15,000 calls and 60,000 emails since March 17. "She also indicates that" we must not be mistaken about their missions: they do not sell plane tickets, they also do not make reservations, they do not fill the planes ".
But it was the end of the press release that angered Amelle. "Many are in a country of which they sometimes have nationality and often family, which means that they are not completely isolated. […] All those who can stay in Algeria, especially those who have their families there, […] are invited to be patient. "I am French, I do not have binationality, I do not speak Arabic, I do not live here, in addition we live with my grandparents of 88 and 80 years", she lists, reluctant to "be patient".
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Without prospects of return, it is the absence of information that most undermines it. "We are in total ignorance," she denounces. I wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the Elysée Palace, to deputies but nothing, no response. ” Faced with this ubiquitous situation, she clings to her ticket scheduled for June 1, but without believing it too much.
If you, too, have been stranded abroad since the start of confinement and you do not know when you will be able to return to France, you can testify by filling out the form below. Thank you in advance.
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