The idea that France supports a second mandate of Abdelmadjid Tebboune at the head of Algeria makes teeth cringe within France, so much so that the French ambassador to Algeria for two mandates, Xavier Briencourt, is emerged from silence to warn of a disaster scenario.
« Believing in Paris that by going to Algeria by giving in to the Algerians on the issues that are dear to them (memorandum and visa) we will win them over to our cause and bring them to more cooperation, is a decoy, “ declared the former French ambassador in Algiers.
To fully understand the cry of alarm motivated by the friendship and sympathy of the French diplomat for the Algerian people and for the country, we must go back to 2019, the year of the inauguration of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
The septuagenarian was forcibly placed at the top of the Algerian state by the military, led by the omnipresent Ahmed Gaid Salah in 2019 (who died a few months later in mysterious circumstances) to put an end to the popular anti-riot uprising. – new system, the Hirak.
The people who had risen up against a 5th term of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who remained very affected after his stroke in 2014, thus creating this popular movement which then rose up against the entire Algerian system, in particular the fact that the country is ruled by the military.
Seeing that the people were not losing their temper, the military carried out a purge among the potential popular candidates who could succeed the president. Oligarchs, politicians, journalists, no one was spared to leave the way to only one candidate, the one chosen by the military.
After a presidential election boycotted by the people, the military forced a second election which will have had the same result. But despite the general boycott, the candidate Tebboune was “elected”. Badly elected because of the electoral hold-up, but “legitimized” by the support of France, which still preferred a president who was not democratically elected than a country plunged into uncertainty for several more months…
It is by having worked as Ambassador of France in Algeria from 2008 and 2012, then between 2017 and 2020 that Xavier Driencourt, was able to observe by being at the forefront all the negative changes in Algeria since the coming to power of ‘Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
In an analysis published in Le Figaro, the diplomat noted “the repression that has befallen the country, a repression developed and implemented by an army that continues to glorify the fighting against France, the “eternal enemy”, in adding that she “ended up getting the better of the hopes put in the Hirak for a democratization of the country”.
In France, he acknowledged, “we pretend that the Algerian regime is legitimate if not democratic”.
“It has now been three years since Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected President of the Republic in Algeria. Three years and, in Algiers, the question of a second term is being asked. (…) My friendship for Algeria, like my respect for the Algerian people, obliges me to recall some facts about political reality, French illusions and the consequences of these,” wrote Driencourt.
The diplomat added, in a bitter observation, that “if it were necessary to briefly and brutally summarize the situation, I would say that the + New Algeria +, according to the formula in vogue in Algiers, is collapsing before our eyes. “.
Xavier Driencourt also announced that in 2023, an official visit by President Tebboune to France would take place to prepare for his re-election. “2023 will be after last year’s official trips, a time of euphoria with a state visit by the Algerian president as a result, but let’s be under no illusions. At the dawn of an Algerian presidential election, 2024 will inevitably see a new crisis as anti-French discourse is the leaven of a successful electoral campaign,” he wrote.
The Algerian journalist, Abdou Semmar, exiled in France and condemned to the death penalty in his country for having, among other things, criticized the decisions of the Algerian president, reacted to this article by the French diplomat by qualifying it as a “very daring analysis”.
“He simply calls on France to adopt a language of firmness, a very firm line of action against the Algerian regime and he calls on Emmanuel Macron and all French leaders to no longer be naive and complacent towards the Algerian regime. “, he summarized in a comment on his Youtube channel, underlining the degradation of Algeria because of the “totalitarian” and “authoritarian” mode of management of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and his allies.