ALGIERS: Dishonourable. Indecent. Scandalous. As French-Algerian rows go, the latest war of words — over a visit to France by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika — has been more virulent than many of its predecessors.
But whatever the short-term damage caused by the verbal broadsides now being exchanged by the European heavyweight and the Third World champion it once ruled, Algeria and France are unlikely to suffer a lasting breach in relations.
Links of trade, family and language forged by 132 years of colonial rule and a subsequent half a century of trade and migration mean the two Mediterranean nations will loom large in each other’s fortunes for generations, analysts say.
Both sides have had to become adept at controlling tempers.
“Relations with France are too important and too sensitive to fall into the trap set by the declarations of certain people of the (French) right, even if they are powerful people,” Malek Serrai, who heads a business and political strategy think-tank, told Reuters.
“We know that many French and Algerians have a real desire for a relationship of quality.”
Algeria was invaded by France in 1830 and became a colony with more than one million French settlers. A war begun in 1954 by Algerian fighters cost hundreds of thousands of lives — Algiers says 1.5 million — and led to independence in 1962.
Unlike other former French colonial possessions in North Africa, Algeria was technically an overseas department of metropolitan France and to many French people its independence represented a loss of part of their country.
The road to normal relations has been bumpy. A pothole opened in February 2005 when France’s National Assembly approved a law referring to the “positive role of the French presence overseas, especially in North Africa”.
Bouteflika said it was “hard not to be revolted” by the law. The disputed legal move was recently repealed.
Another row erupted last year when Algeria called on France to apologise for crimes committed during colonialism.
French authorities responded by urging “mutual respect”.
The latest flap has a novel component — the protocol of a health check in Paris last week by Bouteflika.
French right-wingers complained France should not have permitted Bouteflika to visit Paris, because just days earlier in a speech in the eastern town of Constantine he said French colonialism amounted to a “genocide” of Algerian identity.
Many French, and especially those who fought in the war of independence, were offended.
Bouteflika made his remarks just days after French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy visited Algiers to negotiate a friendship treaty aimed at ending precisely these sorts of public arguments. It remains unsigned.
On Sunday, Douste-Blazy raised Algerian hackles by noting pointedly that the head of state’s visit to Paris — a routine follow-up to an operation he had in Paris late last year — showed how much he valued French medicine and hospitals.
Algeria’s Liberte daily shot back: “No Algerian could have thought the hospitalisation of their president was going to lead to such a decadent and dishonourable overstatement.”
“Is it a total loss of control and imperturbability vis-a-vis the French decline in Algeria?”
In fact, France is far from being in decline in Algeria. It has proved adept at retaining influence despite competition in trade and investment from Russia, the United States and China.
France is by far the largest single supplier of Algerian imports, has big investments in the energy sector, retains military and intelligence links and enjoys a profound cultural influence in the world’s second largest French speaking country.
“France will always be important in Algeria, whether it will be the most important is by no means certain,” Hugh Roberts, North Africa specialist of the International Crisis Group.
“I don’t attach too much importance to this latest spat but the Algerian traditional philosophy is to maintain a balance internationally. They do not want to be in anyone’s pocket.”
In 2003 President Jacques Chirac won a greeting of unexpected warmth when he made the first state visit by a French president since 1962. Hundreds of thousands turned out to greet him in Algiers and Oran, where he was showered with confetti.
Human relations are deep and complex: One million Algerians live in France. Uppermost in many Algerian minds is not the independence war but the need for visas and work permits.
Algerians say that as the generation that fought the independence war passes into history, emotions should stabilise.
Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said after Douste-Blazy’s visit: “The delay in the signature of the frienship treaty has not affected relations between the two countries. Relations between Algiers and Paris are not in crisis.”—Reuters
