The return of the Algerian ambassador to France "is conditioned on respect for Algeria, total respect for the Algerian state. We forget that it was once a French colony (...) History must not be falsified, "Abdelmadjid Tebboune told Algerian media on Sunday (October 10) in his first public statement in reaction to the French president's remarks.

"The State is standing with all its pillars, with its power, the power of its army and its valiant people", continued the Algerian president, also supreme chief of the armed forces and Minister of Defense.

He also underlined about Algerian history and French colonization, that "we cannot act as if nothing had happened".

For "the rest, it is their internal affairs", he said in an allusion to possible electoral aims of the critical remarks of Emmanuel Macron.

The French president sparked the wrath of Algiers after comments reported on October 2 by the French newspaper Le Monde accusing the Algerian "politico-military" system of maintaining a "memorial rent" by serving its people a "history official "which" is not based on truths ". 

According to Le Monde, the French president also affirmed that "the construction of Algeria as a nation is a phenomenon to watch. Was there an Algerian nation before French colonization? That is the question (...) ", one of the passages that most shocked Algerian opinion. 

On October 2, Algiers decided to recall "immediately" its ambassador to Paris and de facto banned French military planes from the anti-jihadist operation Barkhane in the Sahel from flying over its territory.

Last Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted "appeasement" on the memorial subject between France and Algeria, calling for "walking together" and "recognizing all memories".

"There will inevitably be other tensions, but I think that my duty is to try to make this work progress" from memory, he also declared in an interview with France Inter.

With AFP and Reuters

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