Former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe called for a revision of the 1968 immigration agreement with Algeria, a position echoed by other right-wing officials.
This proposal could once again exacerbate delicate relations between Paris and Algeria, and it was made at a time when the Algerian president is preparing to visit Paris in the near future, but the dates of the visit have not yet been determined.
The 1968 Convention governs the entry, residence and employment of Algerians in France under special preferential rules other than common law. As for other foreigners (especially regarding family reunification), but otherwise has negative sides, especially for students.
“Of course, there are very strong historical relations between France and Algeria, but maintaining these mutual understandings now with a country with which we have a difficult relationship is no longer justified,” Edouard Philippe told L’Express magazine on Monday.
In a note published in late May by the Center for Liberal Thought, he called on the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Drinkour, to denounce the agreement.
Édouard Philippe’s statements were widely criticized in the Algerian press, as the newspaper El Watan believed that “the pressure on Algeria is the unrecognized goal of this political campaign”.
The newspaper also confirmed that there was little left of the 1968 Convention after it had been revised three times, and that the position of Algerians had become very close to common law in terms of immigration regulations in France.
And the website “Jerry Mentonan” reported that the right in France began to play all their cards to spoil the visit of President Abdelmajid Tebbun.
For its part, the French Foreign Ministry commented that “the 1968 agreement and cooperation in general are topics of regular dialogue with our Algerian partners.”
Official figures show that in 2022, France issued almost 600,000 “documents of residence” for Algerians.
Source: AFP.