The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has communicated to have ” received “ The French ambassador to Algiers, Stéphane Romatet, Thursday, March 6, to tell him about the “Project severity” Franco-Moroccan military maneuvers, scheduled for September according to Algiers. These joint exercises will be considered as a “Act of provocation with regard to Algeria” who will only“Feed the crisis” current.
Algerian diplomacy will not miss “To carry the climate of tensions between the two countries to a higher threshold of gravity”. According to Algiers, this Franco-Moroccan military maneuvers project is scheduled for September in Errachidia, “Not far from the Algerian border”.
Relations between France and Algeria are going through one of the most serious crises since Algerian independence in 1962. And even more since Emmanuel Macron posted in July his support for a plan of autonomy under “Moroccan sovereignty” For the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Sources of tension are multiplying between Algiers and Paris
Triggled by the discord apple that is Western Sahara, the tensions have revived with the incarceration in mid-November in Algeria of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal and the refusal of Algiers to let in his soil several of his nationals expelled from France, then with a murderous attack in Mulhouse whose main suspect is Algerian.
The Western Sahara, a vast desert territory but whose coasts are fishy and rich in phosphate, is an old Spanish colony, controlled by 80 % by Morocco but considered as a non -autonomous territory by the United Nations. An armed conflict has opposed Morocco for fifty years to the separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers.
Emmanuel Macron tried last week to calm the game with Algeria on migration issues by taking the floor for the first time in recent weeks, and called for “Re -engage a substantive work” On the immigration agreements between the two countries.
