Tensions between France and Algeria, never far from the surface, flared as the two countries engaged in tit-for-tat expulsions of officials working at each of their embassies and consulates.
In response to Algeria’s decision of Monday to expel 12 officials working at the French embassy and consulates, the French presidency announced on Tuesday that it would “symmetrically” proceed with the expulsion of 12 consular and diplomatic “Algerian agents.”
“The Algerian authorities are responsible for this brutal deterioration of our bilateral relations,” it said.
France also said it was recalling its ambassador to Algeria.
Algeria’s decision came after the arrest in France on Friday of an Algerian official accused of involvement in the kidnapping last year of an Algerian influencer known as “Amir DZ.”
“This disgraceful act, by which the minister of the interior sought to humiliate Algeria, was perpetrated with no regard for the consular status of the agent,” Algeria’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Earlier, France had reacted with threats of its own. “We are ready to act,” said Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister. “The Algerian authorities only have a few hours left to reverse their decision.”
The Algerian official was indicted on suspicion of “arrest, abduction, unlawful confinement or arbitrary detention in connection with a terrorist undertaking,” French national antiterrorism prosecutors said in a statement.
He and two other people have been detained.
“Amir DZ” has been living in France since 2016 and was granted political asylum in 2023.
For years, Algeria has demanded his extradition, issuing nine international arrest warrants on accusations of fraud and terrorist offenses. French courts rejected the request.
“Neither societies have moved on from trauma, so there are always people in Algeria and in France who have an interest in torpedoing any climate of conciliation,” Khadija Mohsen-Finan, a political scientist with a focus on the Arab world and North Africa and an associate researcher at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
France ruled Algeria for more than a century, as a colony and then a part of its territory. Algeria won its independence in 1962, after a devastating war, but tensions between the two countries have remained almost constant.
Last week, Mr. Barrot visited Algiers in an attempt to revive relations and put to rest an almost yearlong diplomatic crisis.
The relationship had seemed to ease when President Emmanuel Macron called his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, in late March. But the conciliation proved illusory.
Relations have been particularly bad since last summer, when Mr. Macron announced French support of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory whose control Algeria disputes.
The situation was aggravated by the arrest last November in Algiers of an Algerian French writer, Boualem Sansal, on accusations of undermining national unity and security.
Mr. Macron, alongside many intellectuals and officials, was outraged. He has called for the release of the author, believed to be 80, who was sentenced to five years in prison in late March.
Roger Cohen is the Paris Bureau chief for The Times, covering France and beyond. He has reported on wars in Lebanon, Bosnia and Ukraine, and between Israel and Gaza, in more than four decades as a journalist. At The Times, he has been a correspondent, foreign editor and columnist.
Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.
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