France has long tried to balance two contradictory roles with Algeria: a fair-weather friend and a former coloniser that never truly let go. However, as the right wing reshapes the political mainstream in Paris, Algerians in France say they are being scapegoated in the name of ‘national security.’
On 8 March, Michel Onfray, a prominent French essayist, declared on CNEWS—a far-right-leaning channel often compared to America’s Fox News—that “the danger in France now is Algerian.”
Once confined to the fringes, this rhetoric is now seeping into Matignon (France’s 10 Downing Street), with supposedly centrist ministers inching ever closer to the right.
On 24 February, Prime Minister François Bayrou lashed out at Algerian authorities for their “unacceptable” refusal—ten times over—to issue a consular pass for the return of a 37-year-old Algerian national ordered to leave French territory.
Algeria has also refused to accept the return of two of its nationals arrested in France for inciting violence online.
In response, Bayrou, backed by his cabinet, is now threatening to scrap the 1968 Franco-Algerian agreement, which grants Algerians special immigration privileges, as retaliation for Algiers’ reluctance to take back its nationals.
In France’s densely Algerian-populated neighbourhoods, the debate over the agreement’s potential cancellation is rife, though many remain unsure of what it actually entails and what its cancellation would mean.
For older Algerians who remember the war of liberation and the brutal French colonisation, settling in the country whose troops once massacred their people was already an uneasy compromise. Some fled post-independence authoritarianism; others sought a better future for their families.
“It hurts to hear French officials talk like this about my country and my people”, said Azzedine, a 74-year-old Franco-Algerian in Marseille. “The French see us as a threat.”
Azzedine, a naturalised French citizen, worries little for himself—he has seen it all—but more for the younger generation, the Algerian youths he meets in Marseille’s diaspora cafés, for whom the agreement’s scrapping could spell a new era of hardship.
“Terminating this agreement would represent a major political and legal rupture, affecting thousands of Algerians who have built their lives in France under this framework”, Rim-Sarah Alouane, a researcher in Constitutional Law and discrimination told The New Arab.
For decades, the 1968 treaty granted Algerians a unique residency and work status in France.
Though amended in 1985, 1994, and 2001—each revision chipping away at its benefits—Algerians still retain certain privileges, such as the ability to obtain a coveted 10-year residency permit after just three years of living in France, rather than the five required for other foreign nationals.
The 1968 accord was originally conceived as a gesture of goodwill, an olive branch extended by France to its former colony. However, today, French officials increasingly frame it as outdated and overly generous.
“This agreement, which has already been revised four times, is now somewhat obsolete,” said Gérald Darmanin, France’s justice minister, in January.
Darmanin, who previously served as interior minister, is hardly a beloved figure in Maghrebi communities. He was the face of the French government’s apologism for police violence, most notably in 2023 when a police officer shot and killed Nahel Merzouk, a Franco-Algerian teenager, for speeding.
Now, in the coffeehouses of Marseille– major hub for North African migrants– Algerians swap theories about Darmanin’s growing grip on France’s justice system and whether they are witnessing the rise of French “Trumpism.”
“With the right wing so close to power, we might end up like the US (…) A government just deporting all the foreigners,” said Hamid, an Algerian restaurant worker in France.
Like many Algerians in France The New Arab spoke to, Hamid declined to use his last name, citing fear of doxxing by the far right—or worse, retribution from the ‘Lhoukouma’ (Algerian state) for criticising its diplomacy.
Their fears are not unfounded. On 13 March, a civil servant in France’s Ministry of Economy was indicted on suspicion of espionage for Algeria—accused of leaking information about Algerian dissidents in France to Algiers.
The comparison to Trump’s America is not limited to Algerian café discussions—it is a pattern that France’s most renowned publication, Le Monde, has also flagged.
In an article titled “writer Boualem Sansal is being instrumentalised just as Donald Trump instrumentalises freedom of expression,” the French daily examined how the far right—and, in some cases, even the left—manipulates free speech for political ends.
The far right’s playbook often tokenises Algerians who align with its views—especially those who criticise Islam or immigration—as proof that its politics are not racist.
Boualem Sansal, a Franco-Algerian writer known for his anti-Islamist (some would argue Islamophobic) views, is a case in point.
Arrested in Algeria for his critical views of the Algerian government, Sansal has been embraced by the French political parties, namely the right, with even President Emmanuel Macron saying releasing him is crucial to restoring ‘trust’ with Algeria.
Meanwhile, the broader Algerian community in France—1.12 million strong, including 10,000 doctors and over 500,000 higher-education graduates—finds itself increasingly stigmatised.
“Franco-Algerian dual nationals risk being unfairly ostracised in times of diplomatic crisis. They are often suspected of divided loyalties, despite being fully French citizens with the same rights and responsibilities as any other,” added Alouane in her interview with The New Arab.
France-Algeria’s endless diplomatic rifts: a legacy of colonisation
Algerian-French diplomatic relations are at their lowest point in decades.
Tensions flared last summer after President Macron officially endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara as “the only basis” for resolving the conflict.
Algeria, a longtime supporter of the Polisario Front–a separatist movement fighting against Morocco– recalled its ambassador to France indefinitely in protest.
So far, Algerian officials have maintained that their country’s refusal to accept the deportees from France is related to concerns about due process as they condemned Paris’ threats as “acts of provocation.”
Yet the current tensions cannot be understood without the shadow of colonial history. Algeria was not just a colony but an integral part of France for 132 years, with millions of French settlers, known as pieds-noirs, making it their home.
When Algeria won independence in 1962, nearly one million pieds-noirs fled overnight, their resentment shaping France’s post-colonial politics, with far-right movements invoking Algeria as a lost paradise destroyed by immigration and decolonisation.
Meanwhile, for Algeria, any conflict with France stirs memories of a dark colonial history that Paris has yet to fully acknowledge and apologise for.
However, its military-led government has been accused of deliberately clashing with its former coloniser to distract from mounting economic difficulties and political dissatisfaction in Algeria.
France’s political divide fuels the crisis
This is not the first time France has used immigration as leverage against North African governments.
In 2021, Paris slashed visas for Algerians, Moroccans, and Tunisians—cutting them by 50% for Algerians—to pressure these countries into accepting the return of undocumented migrants.
France eventually restored visa issuance after months of negotiations.
However, Algerians in France remain acutely aware of how political whims can upend their lives.
Students, in particular, worry about their legal status and ability to continue their studies.
“Algerians in France are already facing structural difficulties,” Lina Lounas, president of Sciences Algérie, an association of Algerian students and alumni in France, told The New Arab.
Social workers assist immigrants with paperwork noted that diplomatic rifts have directly impacted daily life, particularly in renewing residency permits.
“It is a multidimensional relationship shaped by history and human ties. It is crucial that diplomatic decisions remain based on dialogue rather than being dictated by electoral considerations or ideology”, urged Rim-Sarah Alouane in her interview with The New Arab.
In 2024, a majority of French citizens of African and Middle Eastern descent voted for the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing coalition. Though NFP technically won the elections, coming ahead of Macron’s party and Le Pen’s National Rally, it failed to secure an outright majority.
Macron, refusing to appoint an NFP prime minister, has struggled to control his increasingly right-wing cabinet.
“I am totally in favour, not of leaving it (the 1968 agreement), but of renegotiating it,” he said, stressing that withdrawing from an international agreement is a presidential decision, not the government’s.
Yet hardline ministers, like Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, have openly disagreed with him.
To his credit—what little remains—Macron has taken more steps toward reconciling with Algeria than his predecessors.
However, time and time again, his gestures fall woefully short of what is needed to mend Franco-Algerian ties.
Returning the skulls of 24 decapitated resistance fighters or acknowledging France’s role in colonial-era assassinations may be symbolic, but they do little to address the deeper scars of 132 years of colonisation.
However, with the right wing moonwalking to Matignon—and perhaps eventually the Élysée—whatever fragile reconciliation efforts France has made with Algeria could soon be erased.
