Algeria suspends consular cooperation with France in three main cities
Algerian authorities suspended consular cooperation with France in its consulates of Nice, Marseille, and Montpellier, amid a worsening diplomatic crisis that led the French interior minister to call for banning entry to the Algerian nomenklatura.
The Algerian escalatory move came in a series of provocations including the refusal to admit Algerian nationals who have been deported by France for violating local laws.
Interior minister Bruno Rottailleaux has been calling on France to take a tough stance against Algeria including banning Algerian airlines, scrapping the 1968 deals giving Algerians preferential treatment in settling in France, and denying entry to holders of diplomatic passports.
The latter move could deal a blow to the private interests of the Algerian political class. Journalist in exile Abdou Semmar said some 10,000 people in Algeria have diplomatic passports, a privilege that has been given to regime members even if they had no diplomatic role.
Algeria’s refusal to cooperate on migration with France came in retaliation for Paris support for Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara territory.
Among the victims of the Paris-Algiers crisis was dual national novelist Boualem Sansal, who spent four months in arbitrary detention for mentioning in an interview in France the colonial origins of Algeria’s current borders at Morocco’s expense.
