Algeria convened the French Embassy of the French Embassy in Algiers on Sunday to notify him of new expulsions of French officials from the Algerian territory, we learned on Monday from French diplomatic sources.
The officials concerned are on a temporary reinforcement mission, these sources said, without being able to specify their number or when the expulsion will be effective.
At this stage, the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not published a press release formalizing this request which was announced by a dispatch from the Algerian Press Agency (APS).
According to the agency, Algeria requires “the immediate repatriation” of all French employees appointed under “irregular conditions”.
“This convocation of the French diplomat would have occurred after the observation of flagrant and repeated shortcomings of the French party to compliance with the procedures devoted in the allocation of agents to French diplomatic and consular representations in Algeria,” says APS.
“Indeed, over the recent period, it would have been noted by the competent Algerian services the assignment of no less than fifteen French agents before assuming diplomatic or consular functions without these assignments having made, beforehand, the object, neither official notifications, nor appropriate accreditation requests as required by the procedures in force”.
The Algerian authorities would also have reported to block the approval process of two Algerian general consuls appointed to Paris and Marseille, as well as seven other consuls, still awaiting finalization of approval procedures for more than five months.
In mid-April, the Algerian authorities had already declared Persona Non Grata twelve French officials from the Ministry of the Interior who had to leave Algeria in 48 hours. Algiers had then argued that it was an answer to the arrest in France, then to its detention, of an Algerian consular agent.
France had then retaliated by also taking the decision to expel 12 Algerian consular agents and recalling the French ambassador to Algeria Stéphane Romatet for consultation.
The relationship between France and Algeria remains “completely frozen” since the expulsion in mid-April of twelve French officials by Algiers and a measure of similar reprisals by Paris, had deplored French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot on Sunday during an interview with France Inter/France Télévisions/Le Monde.
