PARIS —
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit former colony Algeria next week in
a bid to improve strained ties between Paris and Algiers, the French presidency
said Saturday.
اضافة اعلان
French-Algerian
ties hit a low late last year after Macron reportedly questioned whether
Algeria had existed as a nation before the French invasion and accused its
“political-military system” of rewriting history and fomenting “hatred towards
France”.
Algeria withdrew its ambassador in response, but the two sides appear to
have mended ties since.
“This trip will
contribute to deepening the bilateral relationship looking to the future ... to
reinforce Franco-Algerian cooperation in the face of regional challenges and to
continue the work of addressing the past,” the presidency said in a statement
after a call between Macron and his opposite number Algerian President
Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Macron is to visit
Algeria from Thursday to Saturday next week.
The North African
country won its independence from France following a grueling eight-year war,
which ended with the signing in March 1962 of the Evian Accords.
On July 5 of the
same year, days after 99.72 percent voted for independence in a referendum,
Algeria finally broke free from colonial rule — but memories of the 132-year
occupation continue to haunt its ties with France.
Second trip
Algeria’s war of independence left hundreds of
thousands dead.
French historians say half a million civilians and combatants died —
400,000 of them Algerian — while the Algerian authorities insist 1.5 million
were killed.
But six decades on, despite a string of gestures by Macron, France has
ruled out any form of apology for the colonial period.
The French presidency announced Macron’s visit as Algeria reels from
devastating wildfires.
Fires in northeastern Algeria — now largely extinguished — have killed 38
people, and ravaged more than 10 percent of a UNESCO-listed biosphere reserve.
But firefighters were still battling blazes in the far west on Saturday,
the Algerian civil defense said.
Macron offered France’s land and air firefighting services to help, the
presidency said.
This week’s trip will be the French president’s second to Algeria as head
of state, after a brief one in December 2017 at the start of his first term
when Abdelaziz Bouteflika was still president.
This visit is set to be longer, and take him to both the capital Algiers
and second city Oran.
Tebboune,
Bouteflika’s former premier, won presidential elections in
2019, after mass protests forced his ageing predecessor to resign.
Earlier
this year, he congratulated Macron on his re-election and invited him to come
to Algeria.
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