Paris announces expulsions one day after Algeria orders 12 French diplomats to go within 48 hours.
France says that it will expel 12 members of the Algerian diplomatic and consular personnel and remembered its Algiers ambassador, deepening a crisis that threatens to unravel months attempt to reconciliation between the two countries.
Tuesday’s announcement comes a day after Algeria ordered 12 French diplomats to leave within 48 hours.
Algiers announced the expulsions after French prosecutors accused three Algerian citizens, including a consular official, about the alleged kidnapping of an outstanding government critic in Paris last year.
The activist, Amir Boukhors, better known for his more than one million Tiktok followers as “Amir DZ”, received asylum in France in 2023. He was kidnapped in a suburb of Paris in April last year and released the next day. The French authorities said that the three suspects also face “terrorist” conspiracy charges.
Tense relationships
It is the first time that France stops an employee of the Algerian consulate, marking a strong escalation in the tensions between Paris and the former French colony.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Monday that expulsions were directly linked to the sentence.
The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs pointed out that the measure of Algeria, if carried out, would mark the first expulsion of the French diplomats in the country since its independence in 1962.
Algeria, who has issued nine international trial orders for Boukhors for charges that include fraud and “terrorism”, demands extradition.
The climbing occurs despite the recent oberturas between the two countries. Only a week before, Barrot with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and declared that bilateral relations had returned to normal after a period or tensions over low heat.
The support of French president Emmanuel Macron of the Morocco Autonomy Plan for the disputed region of the West of Sahara last year caused outrage in Algiers. The imprisonment of the French writer-Algerio Boalem Sansal for an Algerian Court last month only joined the tension with Macron asking for his release.