an official visit firmly rooted in the Fifth Republic

Emmanuel Macron begins his second five-year term as he finished the first: by demonstrating that he wants to make historic reconciliation with Algeria one of the battle horses of his presidency. Barely four months after his re-election, the Head of State began an official visit to Algiers on Thursday, invited by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. “This trip will contribute to deepening the bilateral relationship looking to the future for the benefit of the populations of the two countries, to strengthen Franco-Algerian cooperation in the face of regional issues and to continue the work of healing memories.“Said the Elysee.

In December 2017, Emmanuel Macron had already made Algeria his first official trip outside Europe. He then began a five-year term that he wanted more than anything to place under the sign of memory. Before him, every president of the Fifth Republic, apart from Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, went to Algeria. With varying fortunes.

April 1975: Giscard in Algiers, a first since independence

Algeria has been independent since 1962, but when Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was elected President of the Republic in 1974, no one had yet dared to return there officially. If General de Gaulle was firmly determined to establish an example of postcolonial cooperation with Algeria, in the aftermath of the Evian agreements, the end of the conflict proved difficult. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, had indeed been received in France by Pompidou in 1973, but it was not until 1975 that a French president set foot in Algeria again.

For the first time since the summer of 1962, the French flags therefore float above the main arteries of Algiers, at the beginning of April 1975.Historic France salutes independent Algeria“says Valéry Giscard d’Estaing upon his arrival. His Algerian counterpart, Houari Boumediene, described the three-day visit as “extraordinary event“. The discussions there mainly revolve around the improvement of economic relations.

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But this displacement ofVGE“remains a”big question markfor Algerian specialist historian Jean-Jacques Jordi. “In 1975, we are in the middle of an oil crisis, and Algeria contributes largely to the overbidding of the price of a barrel of oilhe recalls. Is it a last ‘colonialist’ will of France, to ask Algeria to calm down in terms of prices?“.

November 1981: former opponent of independence, Mitterrand advocates “trust»

Minister of the Interior and then of Justice during the Algerian war, François Mitterrand was opposed to independence. But when he was elected President of the Republic in 1981, he went to Algeria in the first months of his mandate, wanting the two countries to be “capable of overcoming and overcoming the heartbreaks of the past», as he will affirm in Algiers, during an official visit in November. The socialist president also believes that France and Algeria “can now base their rapprochement and their friendship on a new factor: trust“. A real change of course and orientation for Mitterrand, who is part of this new left that wants to be “open, globalist», Analyzes Jean-Jacques Jordi.

A few months later, Mitterrand will agree to sign a very advantageous gas agreement for Algeria: France then undertakes to buy Algerian gas at a price 25% higher than the world price, which makes the experts jump. In fact, the Algerian authorities, who perhaps considered this “gas surchargeas a sort of additional reparation for the damage of the Algerian war, did not play the game by not giving preference to French companies.

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This pledge was like “a way to reach out and compensate Algeria for war and colonization“translates the historian. However, it was at this time that the Maurice Audin affair and the accusations against France resurfaced. And François Mitterrand will not return to Algeria until March 1989, but will especially distance himself after the bloody repression of the riots of 1988.

March 2003: Chirac, a state visit for a “exceptional partnership»

Two years after a first lightning visit in 2001, Jacques Chirac returns with great fanfare to Algeria, on the occasion of a state visit, the highest in the protocol order. The French president and his counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika chain crowds and parades in convertibles. Jacques Chirac multiplies the symbolic gestures – he notably lays a wreath at the monument of the Algerian martyrs.

Everything seems to be going so well that the two Heads of State sign the “Algiers Declaration», which provides for the establishment of a Treaty of Friendship for a political, economic and cultural strengthening between France and Algeria. A “exceptional partnership“, as defined by the French president. “Already at that time, Jacques Chirac realized that relations between the two countries were not very healthy. This is really the beginning of the hand extended by the French presidents to their Algerian counterparts», Considers Jean-Jacques Jordi.

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However, this treaty comes up against a law, adopted in 2005 by the National Assembly, “on recognition of the nation and national contribution in favor of repatriated French people»The text contains a mention of the «positive roleof colonization. If this section ends up being repealed, the damage is done. The treaty will never be signed and “the gap is widening on the problems of history and memory“, underlines the historian. Algeria will no longer take a step forward and the recognition of colonization as “crime against humanity» or the requirement of «sorryof France become non-negotiable.

December 2007: Sarkozy condemns but does not apologize

Franco-Algerian relations will not warm up under Nicolas Sarkozy. In fact, during the 2007 campaign, the UMP candidate will above all send signs to the harkis, proposing to recognize France’s responsibility in their abandonment and refusing the “repentance“. However, he went to Algeria for his first trip outside Europe, in July 2007. Then returned there in December of the same year. If he denounces the colonial system there, he refuses to apologize in the name of France, which the press will then reproach him for.

Relations between France and Algeria will end up frankly tarnishing, when an Algerian minister will affirm, a few days before the second coming of the president, that the latter owed his election to “jewish lobby“and when France will try to include Algeria on the list of countries”at riskabout immigration. However, Nicolas Sarkozy did try to relaunch his predecessor’s Treaty of Friendship. Without success : “from 2005, Algeria played the card of intransigence, which it had already defeated during the negotiations for independence. She thinks, again, that this position will win her“Summarizes Jean-Jacques Jordi.

December 2012: Holland, and the wish to open a new page

First socialist president since François Mitterrand, François Hollande maintains a special relationship with Algeria, since he completed an internship there when he left the ENA in 1978. In 2008, he went there officially as first secretary of the PS, taking advantage for “condemn the colonial system, which has no positive character“. When he was elected president,Algeria believed a lot in Hollandremembers Jean-Jacques Jordi. A second left-wing president could go further“.

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Ahead of his first presidential visit, François Hollande sends five ministers to Algiers to prepare the ground. In December 2012, before a conquered Algerian Parliament, he recognized “the suffering that colonization has inflicted on the Algerian people“. “It was up to me, it was time, to open a new page, I did it, to have a new age in the relationship between France and Algeria“, he congratulates himself. But, no more than these predecessors, François Hollande will apologize in the name of France or make an act of repentance.

December 2017: Macron launches a five-year term under the sign of memory

There remains Emmanuel Macron, the last president to date to have visited Algeria. His first visit dates from February 2017. Then a simple candidate, the future president will declare that colonization was “a crime against humanity”. A reason for hope for the Algerians. But his visit as president in December 2017 was a charade. The Head of State only met his counterpart, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, already very weak, for a few minutes. The protocol services even offered tea to the entire French delegation to artificially prolong the meeting and deceive, as recently reported The Express .

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On the spot, the young president had not yet wasted his time, depositing, like Jacques Chirac and François Hollande before him, a wreath of flowers at the Memorial of the Martyr of Algiers, erected in memory of the chahids of the Algerian war of independence. . An attitude above allpolitics and diplomacy“, observes Jean-Jacques Jordi, since Emmanuel Macron will not cease thereafter to blow hot and cold on the question of memories. In September 2021, the Head of State will even declare that “the Algerian nation was built on a memorial rent“. A way to counterbalance these trips to Algiers.