It is a report that angered the Algerian authorities.
In a statement released Monday, September 21, the Ministry of Communication accuses the documentary broadcast on M6 entitled "Algeria, the country of all revolts" of "taking a biased view of the Hirak".
Presented as part of the "Enquête Exclusive" program, this 75-minute report filmed at times with "discreet cameras" gives three young Algerians a voice on the future of their country, described as "one of the most closed from the Mediterranean basin "and run by" an authoritarian and corrupt regime ".
The Algerian Ministry of Communication castigates "insipid testimonies", "the most reductive clichés" and "a sum of shallow anecdotes".
Mass unemployment, corruption, women's rights ... the report from the French private channel addresses several themes linked to the unprecedented protest movement that has shaken the country since February 2019. It ends with the issue of press freedom by recalling the the 2-year prison sentence of TV5 Monde correspondent Khaled Drareni.
The Algerian authorities also accuse the journalists of having filmed with a team provided with a "false authorization to shoot" and promises to initiate proceedings against the authors of the report for "forgery in authentic or public writing".
Reached by phone, Patrick Spica, the producer of this documentary ensures that his teams were perfectly in order and provides full support to his journalists who spent two years preparing and filming this subject.
He said he was "surprised" by the reaction of the Algerian authorities because according to him "there are no shattering revelations in this report. It is a photograph, a current portrait of Algeria, without claiming to be exhaustive, but it is true that it is always very passionate ", analyzes the producer.
In a statement, the M6 channel also contests the accusations of the Ministry of Communication and "asks the Algerian authorities to reverse their boycott position in order to pursue its information mission objectively and without any controversy".
This renewed tension between the Algerian authorities and the French media echoes another episode that occurred last May.
The broadcast on the public channel France 5 of another documentary on Algerian youth and the “Hirak”, “Algeria my love”, by French journalist and director of Algerian origin Mustapha Kessous had triggered a diplomatic crisis between Algiers and Paris.
Strong reactions on social networks
Among the protagonists of the M6 report, Noor, a YouTuber known in Algeria, said she regretted having participated in the documentary and deplored "the lack of professionalism" of the French channel.
On her Instagram account which has 1.8 million subscribers, the young woman claims to have been used, as well as her husband "to give a bad image of Algerian women and men and of our country Algeria".
View this post on Instagram
# فرنسا_يااو_أخطينا #Fransa_Yaaaaw_Akhtiiiina
A post shared by Noor et Merouane (@noor_m_officiel) on Sep 20, 2020 at 2:44 pm PDT
The report qualifies the YouTuber as a "minor for life" who must ask permission from her husband to travel or work.
"I am not a minor", protests the YouTuber.
"I really don't understand where you got the idea that I should ask my husband for permission for my work? Outside of marriage, my husband is my partner and collaborator. So we work together and with respect ".
On social networks, many Algerian Internet users criticize a report deemed too caricature, particularly on the issue of women's rights.
I am 30 years old.
I'm not married, no one will force me to be.
I am an entrepreneur.
I live in #Alger but travel all over the country (there for example, I write from Oran!) And I see my friends, guys or girls, everywhere.
WHAT A BULLSHIT COLLECTION.
# M6 # EnquêteExclusive
- YasmineBouchene (@YasmineBouchene) September 20, 2020
"Women do not need permission and can work and travel in Algeria. Nobody forbids it either in law or in practice," said sociologist and political scientist Feriel Lalami, specialist in the status of women in the Maghreb .
She considers "disappointing" what she considers to be "a factual error".
On the other hand, the expression "minor for life" is used by feminists to denounce the inequalities which persist between men and women in the Algerian Family Code of 1984, revised in 2005.
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