A new rift has opened between Algeria and France over the past few months. Verbal attacks and threats between politicians on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea are dangerously escalating. Social media have amplified the tensions and drawn in the publics of both countries. This increasing tension could be especially destructive, as the ties between Algeria and France run deep. More than 10 percent of the French population has a direct link with Algeria, including an estimated 900,000 dual nationals. The two countries have everything to lose if tensions escalate further. For all of these reasons and more, it is high time to lower the temperature between Algeria and France.
Doing so will require facing the roots of the tension. There are deep-seated elements of discord between the two governments. These elements relate to Algeria’s colonial past, Algerian migration to France, and the divergence of their positions over Western Sahara. The shared history between Algeria and France is complex. That history is marked by more than a century of France’s colonization of Algeria, which ended with a bloody war of liberation. The two countries’ shared history has also witnessed successive waves of migration from Algeria to France. The relationship between the two governments has been rather rocky over the past decades with occasional periods of reconciliation.
For a while, the close relationship between the two heads of state, Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Emmanuel Macron, seemed to have brought about a hopeful rapprochement between the two countries. In 2021, Macron announced the creation of a “memory and truth commission,” involving both Algerian and French historians to mend wounds from the history of French colonial rule. Discussions were underway on the return of Algerian cultural artifacts and archives from the colonial period. That rapprochement came to a halt after Macron officially affirmed Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in October 2024.
A diplomatic route to resolve the discord is not only still possible but imperative. There is a lot more at stake than just the welfare of Algeria and France. Considering the shared history and the deep ties between their populations, the pair is at the center of a matrix of relationships between Europe and Africa and between the Global North and Global South more generally.
The tensions between Algeria and France are flaring up in the context of deepening rifts among Global North and Global South countries over trade, migration, energy, environmental and climate cooperation, and the rules-based international order. But these unfavorable geopolitical circumstances are all the more reason for the two neighbors on both sides of the Mediterranean sea to resolve their differences and provide a model for how other nations can reconcile North-South divides. For example, France and Algeria could cooperate to combat wildfires in the Mediterranean basin, which continue to kill hundreds people, destroy hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, and to devastate biodiversity and people’s livelihoods.
More and more, “sovereigntist” waves both in the North and South are pushing countries to close their economies. There is also a growing trend of politicians scapegoating the “other.” That said, if Algeria and France could resolve their differences, it would open new avenues to help partner further not only on combating wildfires, but also on security, energy projects, and finding new pathways to solve migration issues. The two countries must bear in mind their joint responsibility to ensure stability in the Mediterranean Sea and beyond, as well as to look forward to develop further economic and security cooperation.
The Mediterranean Sea has served as the crossroads between civilizations in the east and the west for millennia. Yet, it has become the backdrop for thousands of tragic journeys by refugees and migrants heading north toward Europe. A reinvigorated relationship between Algeria and France would serve to rekindle the potential for commerce and prosperity in the Mediterranean and beyond. Algeria is the doorstep to Africa, as France is for Europe. Yet, the economic ties between the two countries are well below what they could be. Total trade was just under twelve billion dollars between the two countries in 2023 and the stock of direct investment from France in Algeria that year was well below three billion dollars. Building common ground between these two countries could boost trade and investment, increasing both nations’ prosperity.
Just as France and Germany have become the engine of European integration after having fought bloody wars, France and Algeria could become an engine for partnership between Europe and Africa. For instance, as green technologies are becoming economical not just in solar but soon perhaps with hydrogen, the partnership between Algeria and France could help with the transfer of technology that will spur investment and trade in energy across both sides of the Mediterranean. Similarly, in agriculture and agribusiness, there is an opportunity for increases in investment and trade that can mutually benefit of not just Algeria and France but the whole of Africa and Europe.
The galloping demography of the African continent far outweighs that of Europe, which should lead investment to flow massively from the North to the South. There are, of course, important frictions that prevent that. To be sure, deeper investments, including in infrastructure, require further progress on the investment climate in Algeria, as well as removing nontariff barriers to economic integration in Africa. But increasing investments between Africa and Europe also requires a new way for the two continents to view and treat each other.
Something else is required, too: Europe should move away from the paternalism of former colonizers, which has alienated many Africans. That may sound remote from economics and business, but that is likely a major reason why the relationship between Africa and Europe is stuck. Algeria and France’s relationship epitomizes this tension. Small but symbolic steps were taken to bridge the gap in perspectives between Algeria and France over their colonial past. These steps should continue to take place.
The geographic proximity and societal ties between Algeria and France should allow the two countries to reinvent the relationship between Africa and Europe and, more broadly, between the Global North and Global South. A successful reinvention of France-Algeria relations could serve as a model for Europe-Africa relations based on mutual respect that face up to the wounds of the past while looking to the opportunities of the future.
Rabah Arezki is a former vice president at the African Development Bank, a former chief economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region and a former chief of commodities at the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department. Arezki is now a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development, and at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Further reading
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Image: The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, speaks with President of Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune during the G7 Summit in Borgo Egnazia (Brindisi), Italy, June 14, 2024. Photo by VANNICELLI/GRILLOTTI / ipa-agency/IPA/Sipa USA.