The President of the Republic, Mr. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, stressed that it was “urgent” to open a new era of bilateral relations between Algeria and France, stressing that Algeria is an African power.
“It is urgent to open a new era of bilateral relations between Algeria and France. More than 60 years after the war, we must move on. If memory is deeply rooted in us, we also share good a number of fundamental interests, even if our points of view may differ,” said President Tebboune in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro, announcing on the occasion that he would pay a state visit to France in 2023.
He thus considered that “France must free itself from its colonizer complex and Algeria from its colonized complex. Algeria is an African power that no longer resembles at what it used to be in 1962”.
Speaking on the question of Memory and after recalling that the decision to set up a Commission of historians on both sides , he took with the French President, President Tebboune affirmed that “part of the colonization must be depoliticized and returned to history”.
Regarding the nuclear tests carried out by colonial France in the region of southern Algeria, President Tebboune “requested that France cleanses the sites of these tests, in Reggane and Tamanrasset, which still suffer from huge pollution”, expressing his “wish that France provides the medical care needed by the people in these regions”.
Responding to a question on “the restoration of the usual flow of visas by France”, the President of the Republic considered that “it is simply in the logic of things”, recalling that “the movement of people between our two countries has settled by the Evian Accords of 1962 and the 1968 Accord”.
With regard to the teaching of the French language in Algeria, President Tebboune specified that “French should not be imposed on Algerians; it is up to the families to choose”.
In the same vein and speaking about the crisis in Ukraine, President Tebboune affirmed: “I neither approve nor condemn the Russian operation in Ukraine. Algeria is a non-aligned country, and I want to respect of this philosophy. Our country was born to be free”.
