Algeria is furious. In a statement released on Saturday, the country justifies the recall of its ambassador to Paris by its “rejection of any interference in its internal affairs”, specifying that it made its decision following “statements attributed” to French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Following the unchallenged remarks that several French sources have attributed by name to the President of the French Republic, Algeria expresses its categorical rejection of the inadmissible interference in its internal affairs which these remarks constitute”, indicates the Algerian presidency. In its press release, Algiers believes that Emmanuel Macron’s words “are an intolerable attack on the memory of the 5.63 million valiant martyrs who sacrificed their lives in their heroic resistance to the French colonial invasion as well as in the glorious Revolution. national liberation ”.
“Irresponsible remarks” according to Algiers
In a daily article The world appeared Saturday morning which relates an exchange between Emmanuel Macron and descendants of protagonists of the Algerian war, the French president believes that after its independence in 1962, Algeria was built on “a memorial rent”, maintained by “The politico-military system”. According to The world, he also evokes “an official history completely rewritten” which “is not based on truths” but on “a speech which rests on a hatred of France”.
The Algerian presidency therefore justifies the recall of its ambassador Mohamed Antar-Daoud by a “particularly inadmissible situation generated by these irresponsible remarks”. She also criticizes “superficial, approximate and tendentious assessments made with regard to the building of the Algerian national state as well as the affirmation of national identity which are part of a hackneyed hegemonic conception of relations between states”.
The Algerian press very critical
“This unfortunate intervention fundamentally clashes with the principles that should govern a possible Algerian-French cooperation in terms of memory,” said the Algerian presidency. She explains that she sees “the promotion of an apologetic version of colonialism”, believing that “nothing and no one can absolve the colonial powers of their crimes, including the massacres of October 17 in Paris including Algeria and its community established in France are preparing to commemorate with dignity ”.
The statements of the French president are also very criticized by the Algerian press. The private journal El Watan thus devotes his Sunday front page to “Macron’s slippage”, with a line in which he considers that “the French president has issued sharp criticisms of the Algerian leaders”.