At the end of the year, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune salutes the "relationship of trust" between France and Algeria and his personal "reciprocal friendship" with Emmanuel Macron, a new sign of the warming of often tumultuous bilateral relations.

In an interview with the daily Le Figaro – in its edition of Friday, December 30 – President Tebboune calls for a "new era" with France, six months after the visit to Algiers by his French counterpart.

And in turn announces a state visit to France in 2023.

"We have a certain complicity" with the French head of state, said Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

"I see in him the embodiment of a new generation that can save relations between our two countries."

"We have a reciprocal friendship. Certainly, he and I have had unfortunate formulas, but it is the first time, it seems to me, that there is such a relationship of trust between our two countries. “, adds the Algerian president.

French visits to Algiers

Paris and Algiers had found the way to a warming of their relations during a trip by President Macron to Algeria last August.

The two heads of state had signed with great fanfare a joint declaration paving the way in particular for a relaxation of the visa regime granted to Algeria in exchange for increased cooperation from Algiers in the fight against illegal immigration.

The issue had poisoned the bilateral relationship after Paris had halved the number of visas granted to Algeria, deemed not quick enough to readmit its nationals expelled from France.

The file was settled two weeks ago when France announced, through its Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, a return to normal in the granting of visas to Algerian nationals, after those of Tunisia. end of August and from Morocco.

In October, it was French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, accompanied by around fifteen ministers, who went to Algiers to seal this reconciliation around economic projects and a "renewed partnership".

The memorial question around French colonization (1830-1962) and the bloody war of liberation had caused a serious quarrel between the two countries in the fall of 2021, after remarks by Emmanuel Macron for which he then made amends.

"France must free itself from its colonizer complex and Algeria from its colonized complex", notes in this regard the Algerian head of state, judging his country "victim of tenacious prejudices, which are more a matter of ignorance. than malevolence".

With AFP

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