Traveling to Algeria to commemorate France’s repression of independence demonstrations in 1945, the Minister for the Armed Forces, Alice Rufo, announced the strengthening of cooperation between France and Algeria in “migratory” and “judicial” matters.
Following an interview with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in Algiers, the Minister Delegate for the Armed Forces, Alice Rufo, announced the strengthening of cooperation between France and Algeria in matters of “security and defense”, “migratory” and “judicial”.
During this interview, Paris and Algiers discussed ways to “intensify” their cooperation in the areas of “security and defense”, “migratory” and “judicial”, added Alice Rufo who is traveling to Algeria to commemorate France’s repression of demonstrations independentists in 1945.
“We therefore discussed ways to ensure that the coming months are months useful to the interests of our two countries and months to the relationship between France and Algeria,” she declared.
“We discussed cooperation in the area of migration and France, I reiterated, welcomes the resumption of this which followed the visit of the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, and we want to continue in this direction. We discussed the means of intensifying this cooperation”, she added.
“Judicial cooperation”
This visit by Alice Rufo marks a warm-up between Paris and Algiers after nearly two years of deep diplomatic crisis, and aimed to “establish confident and promising relations” and “restore an effective dialogue” with Algiers, according to the Élysée. The delegate minister is the second member of the French government to go to Algeria in less than three months, after the Minister of the Interior Laurent Nuñez in mid-February.
The minister also spoke of “judicial cooperation” between the two countries. “I know how important this subject is for the Algerian authorities and also for us in the field of the fight against drug trafficking,” she added.
Concerning the French journalist Christophe Gleizes, detained in Algeria for almost a year, will receive his first consular visit “in the coming days”, she also announced.
The French ambassador returns to Algiers
This visit should be led by Ambassador Stéphane Romatet, who returned to the country on the occasion of Alice Rufo’s visit to Algeria almost a year after being recalled to Paris by Emmanuel Macron during a peak in tensions between the two countries.
Arrested as part of a report in May 2024 in Kabylia, Christophe Gleizes was sentenced on appeal in early December to seven years in prison for “apology of terrorism”.
His family announced on Tuesday that he had withdrawn his cassation appeal in March, a move aimed at paving the way for a possible pardon from President Tebboune.
On the memorial level, the Algerian president and the French minister agreed to resume the work of the joint commission of historians. Bringing together five French historians and as many Algerian historians, it was created in the summer of 2022 but has not met since the spring of 2024.
