Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said that the money that the state of Mali pays to the Russian Wagner mercenaries will benefit more if it is invested in development.
In an interview with the French newspaper "Le Figaro", Tebboune expressed his concern about the fact that the Sahel region is drowning in misery, indicating that the solution there is more economic than security.
Regarding the possibility of calm returning to Algerian-French relations, Tebboune said, "France must liberate itself from the colonial complex, and Algeria from the colonized complex."
He stressed that 60 years after his country's independence from French colonialism (1830/1962), "we must pass to another stage. If memory is part of our common genes, then we share several basic interests despite the different visions about it."
The Algerian president welcomed the new "relationship of trust" between France and Algeria and his personal "mutual friendship" with President Emmanuel Macron, in a new sign of the return of warmth to bilateral relations, which were often troubled.
"We have a mutual friendship. Of course he and I had unfortunate formulas, but this is the first time it seems to me that there is such a relationship of trust between our two countries," he said.
On the other hand, the Algerian president called on France "to clean up its nuclear waste at the test sites in Tamanrasset and Ouargane (southern Algeria), and to take care of the victims of these experiments on the spot," referring to the nuclear tests in the Algerian desert between 1960 and 1966.
On the issue of visas, which caused a crisis between the two countries, Tebboune said, "The return of the rate of granting French visas to Algerians to its previous state falls within the framework of the logic of things."
In response to a question about the decline in the spread of the French language in Algeria, Tebboune said, "The French language will not be imposed on Algerians, and the choice rests with Algerian families."
Paris and Algeria found the way to improve relations between them during Macron's visit to Algeria last August.
The two heads of state resumed their cooperation in a joint declaration signed with great fanfare, paving the way, in particular, for the easing of the visa regime granted to Algeria, in return for Algeria's increased cooperation in the field of combating illegal immigration.
In the interview with Le Figaro, the Algerian president announced his upcoming visit to France during the year 2023, which is his first since assuming power at the end of 2019.