About two centuries ago, the French-Algerian relations began to weave their threads, and through these years they passed through difficult phases and turns, starting with colonialism, then resistance and independence, through the exchange of official visits between the heads of the two countries.
Between ups and downs, tension and calm, the two countries were keen to open a new page in these crisis relations and turn the page on the past. However, Macron's recent statements angered many Algerians and set the ashes on fire again.
"My Day Fan"... Occupation... Resistance
1827: The "Dey Fan" incident occurred, which France considered an insult to it, and as a result began a three-year siege on Algeria.
- Some historical references mention that my father Hussein hit the French consul in the face with his hand fan 3 times when the consul did not answer my father’s question about France’s debts to Algeria, and France considered this an insult, and imposed a siege on Algeria.
The French were seeking at that time to restore the prestige of the monarchy and colonial expansion, and although the revolution overthrew the rule of the Bourbon dynasty in 1830, France continued its plans for Algeria and the occupation was completed.
- July 5, 1830: The ruler of Algeria, Dey Hussein, handed over his city to the French forces, beginning the French occupation of the country.
Many European immigrants flocked to Algeria, especially farmers and laborers from southern Italy, Spain and France. The colonial authorities confiscated the lands of tribes, villages, and endowments and redistributed them to immigrants.
- In 1832: the Algerians pledged allegiance to Emir Abdelkader for his leadership against the occupation, so he took the city of Mascara as his capital, and began to form an army and a state.
Prince Abdul Qadir Al-Jazaery (Al-Jazeera)
1838.. Tafna Agreement
- In 1838: He forced the French to conclude a truce with him, which was the Tafna Agreement in which Paris recognized his sovereignty over western and central Algeria.
After this agreement, Emir Abdelkader set out to form a government, organize the state and fight corruption, but that agreement was an opportunity for France to catch a breath, to continue fighting after that, to bring down the strongholds of the Emir one by one.
- In 1847: After a bitter resistance, Prince Abdul Qadir and his supporters were forced to surrender on the condition that he be allowed to move to Alexandria or Acre, but he was transferred to France and imprisoned there.
- In 1857: The French colonial forces in Algeria were able to put down the revolt of the Kabylie region, which was led by a young woman, "Lala" (Ms.) Fatima N'Soumer, who had inflicted heavy losses on the French and inflicted great defeats on them, before her defeat and capture.
World War II (networking sites)
From 1939 to 1945: The collapse of France and its occupation by the Germans, and the Anglo-American occupation of North Africa revive Algerians' hopes for independence.
March 1943: The Algerian leader, Farhat Abbas, presented the Algerian people's statement to the French administration, and 56 Algerian and international leaders signed it. The statement demanded a constitution that guarantees immediate and legal participation and equality for Algerians.
1945: Demonstrations demanding independence break out in Setif, and about 45,000 Algerians are killed when the French suppress the unrest that erupted after the demonstrations.
1947: The French National Assembly approved a law calling for the establishment of an Algerian parliament with two chambers, one representing Europeans and the other Algerians, which the Algerians rejected.
1954.. War of Independence
Early November 1954: The National Liberation Front begins waging the War of Independence.
January 1957: The Battle of Algiers began, where the French paratroopers used torture to extract information about the Liberation Front.
May 1958: The French army supports the settlers' uprising, the collapse of the Fourth Republic in France, and the return of General Charles de Gaulle to power.
January 1959: Charles de Gaulle became president of the Fifth Republic in France and later visited Algeria.
- De Gaulle from the city of Constantine (eastern Algeria) announced his huge economic project to create jobs, distribute land to farmers, build housing and achieve development. Politically, he gave Algerians the right to run and vote in a manner equivalent to what was granted to the French, but the Algerians rejected all these temptations, and continued their revolution.
September 1959: De Gaulle spoke of the right of self-determination for the Algerians, which the French settlers considered a betrayal of them, so they launched a rebellion in Algeria, supported by some army units, but the rebellion failed, and this represented a turning point in the official French position.
Settlers' rebellion and the "blue jerboa"
January 1960: Settlers rebel against de Gaulle's moves to negotiate with the National Liberation Front.
February 13, 1960: Thousands of French troops gathered in the Algerian desert to witness the "blue jerboa", a nuclear test four times the power of the nuclear bomb that exploded over Hiroshima in Japan.
April 1961: A coup attempt by French army generals in Algiers fails.
May 1961: The Avian talks began between the French government and the Liberation Front, and resulted in the Avian Agreements, which set a 3-year deadline, after which the Europeans would choose Algerian citizenship or be considered strangers.
October 17, 1961: The French capital, Paris, witnessed a massacre of hundreds of Algerians at the hands of the French police.
March 18, 1962: Representatives of France and the Algerian Provisional Government sign the Afian Accords that perpetuate the French defeat.
The third of July 1962: The decree of the independence of Algeria was signed, but the Liberation Front declared the fifth of July as Independence Day to erase the memory of the occupation from history.
- July 5, 1962: Algeria declared its independence after 132 years of French colonialism and the bloody war of liberation that lasted nearly 8 years, and the flight of a million Europeans called "black feet" to France, and Algeria announces that 1.5 million Algerians were martyred during the war.
French President Charles de Gaulle (social networking sites)
Although Algeria gained its independence in 1962, a treaty signed by French President Charles de Gaulle to end French rule allowed Algeria to continue conducting experiments in the desert until 1966, while biological experiments continued until 1978.
- September 1963: The Secretary-General of the National Liberation Front, Ahmed Ben Bella, became the first president of independent Algeria. Less than a month later, he announced the nationalization of lands still owned by Europeans.
The French bases in Reggane and Bashar were evacuated in the Sahara, Marsa Al Kabeer, and then the Bousfer base between 1967 and 1970.
Nationalization of hydrocarbons and mutual visits
- June 1965: "Ben Bella" was overthrown by his deputy and Minister of Defense, Houari Boumediene, who helped him seize power during internal struggles following independence.
February 1971: Boumediene announces the nationalization of gas pipelines and 51% of the assets of French oil companies.
In response, Paris decided in April 1971 to end the "privilege relations" with Algeria.
- April 1975: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing begins the first official visit by a French president to independent Algeria.
- End of November 1981: President Francois Mitterrand affirmed upon his arrival in Algeria on an official visit that "France and Algeria are capable of overcoming and overcoming the differences of the past."
blogs Chadli Bin Jadid (networking sites)
December 1982: Chadli Bendjedid made the first visit of an Algerian president to France.
June 2000: President Abdelaziz Bouteflika visited France.
October 2002: The French General Jacques Masso, who led the incidents of suppressing the Algerian revolution, died.
- March 2003: President Jacques Chirac signed in Algiers with Bouteflika the "Algeria Declaration", which stipulated an "exceptional partnership" in order to overcome "a past that is still painful... that should not be forgotten or denied."
New tensions and deterioration of relations
February 2005: The promulgation of a law in France on the "positive role of colonialism" distorted relations between Algeria and Paris, and Bouteflika declared that this law revealed "a mental blindness that is almost denial and distortion of history."
2006: The controversial section of the law was abolished by decree, but Algeria stipulated an official apology for crimes committed under colonialism to sign a treaty of friendship.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (Al Jazeera)
2007: President Nicolas Sarkozy, during his visit to Algeria, denounced the colonial regime without apologizing, and called on Algeria to "look to the future."
2012: Francois Hollande admitted, on an official visit, to the “suffering that French colonialism inflicted” on the Algerian people.
Macron, the candidate and the president
2016: French media revealed the presence of 18,000 decapitated Algerian skulls preserved in this museum, of which only 500 have been identified.
February 16, 2017: Macron visited Algeria as a presidential candidate, and on that day he admitted that French colonialism was a crime against humanity, a statement that left a welcome in Algeria and anger among the French right.
December 6, 2017: Macron visits Algeria in his capacity as president of France, but he did not offer an official recognition or apology from Paris for the crimes of colonialism, as the Algerians demanded.
2018: Macron admitted that France instituted a "system" of systematic torture during the Algerian war of liberation.
- December 2018: Algerian Minister of Veterans' Affairs Tayeb Zitouni says that 4 basic files related to the colonial era are: archives, skulls of resistance fighters, the missing, and compensation for victims of nuclear tests, which are the key to normal relations between the two countries.
The popular movement..Anti-French slogans
February 2019: Anti-French slogans sweep the demonstrations of the Algerian popular movement demanding the departure of the regime of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
March 2019: Anger in the Algerian street after France announced its support for a road map announced by Bouteflika to extend his rule, which caused anger in the street.
Throughout 2019, statements by Algerian officials and politicians, including the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaid Salah, accused Paris of trying to interfere in the transitional phase in Algeria (post-Bouteflika 1999-2019).
December 2019: France is late in congratulating Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, after his victory in the presidential elections held on December 12, 2019.
April 2020: Algerian Minister of Trade, Hachemi Jaaboub, describes France as the enemy of the past, present and future in the eyes of the Algerians, and Paris is protesting.
April 2020: The Algerian Foreign Ministry summons the ambassador of Paris to it, Xavier Droncourt, in protest against the French army’s publication on its Twitter account that included the name of Algeria and its flag, and the Amazigh flag and the name of the Kabylie region were added to it, as if it were two different or independent entities, and not one country is Algeria. .
May 7, 2020: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said that France "killed half of Algeria's population from 1830 to 1962, and the number of victims reached 5.5 million."
- May 27, 2020: Algeria summons its ambassador in Paris for consultations, in protest against the broadcast by French government channels of a documentary film on the Algerian popular movement, showing young people calling for freedom from tradition, and also criticizing the authorities and the army leadership.
French President Emmanuel Macron (Reuters)
July 2020: Macron commissioned historian Benjamin Stora to prepare a report on the French colonial legacy in Algeria and how France dealt, but Macron refused France's apology for its colonial crimes in Algeria.
July 2020: France hands over to Algeria 24 remains of Algerian resistance fighters against French colonialism, among hundreds of others that are still being held in the Paris Museum.
- 2020: The Algerian authorities submitted a file to the United Nations to consider France's compensation for the victims of nuclear explosions, but the case did not move.
- January 2021: The French presidency announced that Emmanuel Macron will take "symbolic measures" to calm the memory of the Algerian war and try to reconcile the two countries, but he will not offer the "apologies" requested by Algeria, after the publication of a report commissioned by the French historian Benjamin Stora.
February 2021: Algeria rejected the report, describing it as "subjective", criticizing France's failure to "officially recognize the war crimes and crimes against humanity that it committed during its occupation of Algeria," according to Minister of Communication Ammar Belhimer.
- April ninth, 2021: Paris announces the postponement of the visit of its Prime Minister Jean Castax to Algeria for health reasons, while diplomatic sources said that the real reason is Algeria's refusal to reduce the size of the French delegation.
- April 19, 2021: Abdel Majid Chikhi, advisor to the Algerian president, accuses France of spreading illiteracy in Algeria with its colonization in 1830, after its rate did not exceed 20% during the Ottoman era.
- July 3, 2021: Algeria retrieved the remains of 24 leaders of the popular resistance against the French occupation, 170 years after their detention in the "Human" Museum in Paris.
September 29, 2021: The Algerian Foreign Ministry summons France's ambassador, François Gouyat, after Paris decided to halve the number of visas granted to Algerian nationals, without first consulting with the Algerian authorities.
The French President's statements.. Fire under the ashes
September 30, 2021: Macron receives the grandchildren of "Harki" (Algerian agents who worked with France), and makes unprecedented statements, claiming that there was no Algerian nation before his country's colonization of Algeria.
Le Monde newspaper reported that Macron made critical statements about Algeria, saying that it was this regime that rewrote the French colonial history of the country, with a reference stemming from "hatred of France."
- The French newspaper attributed Macron to saying that it was this regime that rewrote the French colonial history of the country, with a reference stemming from "hatred of France."
In his speech, which was reported by "Le Monde", Macron said, "Was there an Algerian nation before French colonialism? This is the question," referring to the existence of "previous colonization processes."
"I am intrigued to see Turkey's ability to make people completely forget the role it played in Algeria and the hegemony that it exercised," he added, in a sarcastic tone, referring to the Ottoman Empire.
October 2, 2021: The Algerian presidency announces the recall of the Algerian ambassador to Paris for consultations, in protest of Macron's statements, which she described as "offensive".
October 2021: The French army announces that Algeria has started preventing its military planes from crossing Algerian airspace towards the African Sahel countries, in a move that the Algerian authorities have not commented on.
- October 5, 2021: Emmanuel Macron expressed his hope for a "calm" and said, "I have great respect for the Algerian people, and I have really friendly relations with President Tebboune."
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune (Al Jazeera)
October 11, 2021: Algerian President Tebboune said, "France must forget that Algeria was once a colony, because it has now become a country with all its pillars, strong army, economy and proud people."
Tebboune called on France to recognize its crimes in Algeria, noting that French President Emmanuel Macron had acknowledged this earlier before he turned and questioned even the existence of an Algerian state before French colonialism.
October 16, 2021: Macron denounced "unjustifiable crimes in the Republic", following an official ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the killing of Algerian demonstrators on October 17, 1961 in Paris.