Should we perceive this event, which went relatively unnoticed in France, as a new slap in the face to Franco-Algerian diplomatic relations? On May 24, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune took the decision by decree to reintroduce, in certain situations, the third verse of his country's national anthem, the Kassaman. Until today, the anthem was, in the overwhelming majority of cases, played in its reduced version, with a single verse.
This change would be anecdotal if the couplet in question did not directly target the France. In detail, he declaims:
"O France! The time for palaver is over
We closed it as one closes a book
O France! Here comes the day when you must be held accountable
Get ready! Here is our answer
The verdict, our revolution will give it back Because we have decided that Algeria will live
A polemical couplet as far as Algeria
Until now, this couplet, like the second, fourth and fifth, was only planned at the FLN congresses and the inauguration of the President of the Republic, by virtue of a decree promulgated in May 1986. In other words, it was particularly rare to hear it. But in this new decree, President Tebboune decided that the complete version of the anthem, and therefore the third verse, should also be performed during "official commemorations in the presence of the President of the Republic".
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The Kassaman has been at the center of many controversies during its young history. Composed in 1955, at the very beginning of the Algerian war, by the poet Moufdi Zakaria, a fervent independence activist, it was adopted in 1963, a few months after independence. In the 1980s, under the presidency of Chadli Bendjedid, Algerian authorities attempted to remove the problematic couplet, on the grounds that the Algerian anthem was the only one in the world to name another country. But the amendment was rejected.
Two other attempts also failed, in 1967 and 2007. The verse was therefore never deleted. On the other hand, the decree of May 1986 limited the use of the full version. That of last May therefore widens it a little more. In the event of a state visit to Algeria, President Emmanuel Macron would not have to suffer the affront of a resolutely anti-France anthem, since this modification does not concern official visits by heads of state.
A tense diplomatic context
This event takes place in a delicate diplomatic context between France and Algeria. President Tebboune had however welcomed in the columns of Le Figaro, at the end of December, the new "relationship of trust" between the two countries, four months after the state visit of Emmanuel Macron. The two heads of state had even agreed on a date of visit to France, for Abdelmadjid Tebboune, on May 2 and 3.
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Meanwhile, France and Algeria found themselves in the middle of a diplomatic spat provoked by the Algerian side, when Paris helped exfiltrate Franco-Algerian opponent Amira Bouraoui from Tunis to France, under sentence. If this temporary tension did not last, Tebboune postponed his visit to Paris until June, according to information from Le Figaro.
Finally, this visit may not take place until after the summer. Because the agendas of both presidents are busy between now and then. But probably also because Algiers takes a dim view of the attacks against it vis-à-vis migration policy, coming from the other side of the Mediterranean. In a recent interview with L'Express, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe denounced the 1968 Franco-Algerian treaty, which defines the conditions for the reception and stay of Algerians in France. Just like the former ambassador of France in Algiers, Xavier Driencourt, in his new book.