Ferhat Mhenni visits French Senate as head of Kabyle government

Ferhat Mhenni, head of the Kabyle independence movement MAK, was invited to the French Senate in his capacity as head of the Kabyle government in exile.

Mhenni and a delegation of key kabylie independence movement leaders were received by member of the French national assembly Valerie Boyer, of the Republicans (LR) party.

They posed for a picture inside the national assembly, signaling an inroad in their struggle for independence from Algeria.

The visit took place at a special context in French-Algerian relations, with the beginning of appeasement in tense ties, following Algeria’s failure to compel France to make a volt face on its support for Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara.

Algeria, which never shies away from interfering in sovereign decisions by Western countries supporting Morocco’s territorial integrity, kept deafening silence as Mhenni is celebrated as a guest of the national assembly.

The Kabyle independence movement often blames France for attaching them to an artificial Algerian state with no antecedent in history.

The Kabyles, led by Ferhat Mhenni, contest the legitimacy of the colonial borders in Algeria and recall their first attempt at building their own state following a short-war with the Algerian military junta in the early 1960s.

The Kabyle independence movement, a peaceful independence group, has been calling on Algeria to uphold the principle of self-determination, which the Algerian military regime has for long used as a rhetorical tool during the cold war.

The MAK is listed as a terrorist group in Algeria. Western countries ignore the labeling as incredible, as leaders of the MAK continue to live in different western countries.

The US State department in its country report on terrorism considers Algeria’s designation of the MAK as a terrorist group to be more political than security related.