Algerian Chief of Staff Saïd Chengriha is expected "
at the end of January
" in Paris, where he will meet his counterpart Thierry Burkhard to prepare for the Algerian President's visit scheduled for May, an official told AFP on Wednesday. military sources.
This meeting is highly symbolic as no boss of the Algerian army has gone to France on an official visit for nearly 17 years.
The last visit of an Algerian chief of staff to France dates back to Gaïd Saleh in May 2006.
Getting the bilateral relationship back on track
Thierry Burkhard had met his Algerian counterpart on August 25 and 26, 2022 during French President Emmanuel Macron's trip to Algeria.
The generals then discussed the security situation in the Sahel and discussed the strengthening of cooperation between the Algerian and French armies.
In addition to the state visit of the Algerian president, the two chiefs of staff should once again discuss the situation in the Sahel at the end of January.
In parallel with this meeting, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anne-Marie Descôtes will visit Algeria on January 25 "
at the invitation of her Algerian counterpart, Amar Belani
", the Quai d'Orsay told AFP on Wednesday. .
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and his French counterpart agreed in a phone call on Sunday to visit Paris in May.
The French Head of State hopes to continue the work of memory and reconciliation between the two countries.
Emmanuel Macron's trip to Algiers in August put the bilateral relationship back on track, after a crisis linked to comments he made in October 2021. The memorial question around French colonization (1830-1962) and the bloody war of liberation (1954-1962) had indeed caused a serious quarrel between the two countries in the fall of 2021, before Emmanuel Macron made amends.
Read alsoOur review of the film Les Harkis: the Algerian war without a big speech
At the end of December, Abdelmadjid Tebboune had welcomed the new "
relationship of trust
" between France and Algeria, and announced a state visit to France in 2023, in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro.
Among the other files that poisoned the bilateral relationship, the halving in the fall of 2021 of the granting of visas to Algeria, Paris reproaching Algiers for not readmitting its nationals expelled from France.
The French government had finally announced in mid-December a return to normal for Algerian nationals.
