Algeria recalled Wednesday, February 8 "
for consultations
" its ambassador to France to protest against the "
illegal exfiltration
" via Tunisia of the Franco-Algerian activist Amira Bouraoui, a case that risks rekindling bilateral tensions after a recent phase of warming.
Emphasizing that Algeria has, via an official note, "
firmly protested against the clandestine and illegal exfiltration of an Algerian national
" to France, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune "
ordered the recall to consultations of the ambassador, Said Moussi , with immediate effect
”, announced the Algerian presidency.
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Arrested in Tunisia on Friday from where she risked being deported to Algeria, political activist and journalist Amira Bouraoui was finally able to board a flight to France on Monday evening.
This Franco-Algerian was subject to a ban on leaving the territory in Algeria.
She had been arrested by the Tunisian police when she was trying to board a plane for France, with her French passport.
A judge released her on Monday but she was taken away by Tunisian police before being placed under the protection of the French consulate in Tunis.
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According to the daily
Le Monde
, she was "
welcomed for a few hours at the French Embassy
" before obtaining "
authorization from Tunisian President Kais Saied to return to France
".
In its official note to the French authorities, Algiers said it had expressed "
Algeria's firm condemnation of the violation of national sovereignty by diplomatic, consular and security personnel of the French state
".
These personnel "
took part in a clandestine and illegal operation of exfiltration of an Algerian national whose physical presence on the national territory is prescribed by the Algerian justice
", according to this note.
Algeria rejected this "
inadmissible and unspeakable
" development which causes "
great damage
" to Algerian-French relations, according to the note.
Wednesday morning, the government newspaper El Moudjahid had denounced, in an editorial, a "
very unfriendly
" act towards Algeria and Tunisia.
"
French Politics
"
"
This French policy, of one step forward and ten steps back, does not appease the spirits and throws the cold on the bilateral relations a few weeks before the state visit that President Tebboune should make in France
", according to the French daily.
A visit by Mr. Tebboune to Paris was scheduled for May, during a telephone interview in mid-January with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
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After a severe cold snap in the fall of 2021, Paris and Algiers had sealed a warming of their relations during a trip by the French president to Algiers last August.
The two heads of state had signed with great fanfare a joint declaration to relaunch bilateral cooperation.
In October, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, accompanied by fifteen ministers, traveled to Algiers to concretize this reconciliation through agreements in industry, the creation of start-ups, tourism and culture.
Amira Bouraoui, a 46-year-old doctor by training, made a name for herself in 2014 with her involvement in the “Barakat” movement, which led a campaign against the fourth term of the late president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
She has tried several times to leave Algeria in recent months to visit her son living in France, but in vain, according to the site of the Algerian media radio M where she has hosted a political program since September.
Amira Bouraoui thanked "
all those who made sure that (she) does not find (herself) another time behind bars
", Wednesday on her Facebook page, citing the NGOs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), journalists and consular staff from the French Embassy in Tunisia.
She assured that her departure for France is not “
an exile
” and that she will be “
back very quickly
” in Algeria.
On Wednesday evening, Algerian media announced the arrest of Mustapha Bendjama, editor-in-chief of the newspaper
Le Provincial
in Annaba (east), not far from the border with Tunisia.
Before his arrest, he told colleagues that he had been contacted beforehand by the police asking him "
information on the exit of Amira Bouraoui from the territory
" and having told them that they had "
nothing to do with this case
".
