Saïd Chengriha will visit France in January to pave the way for Tebboune
No Algerian chief of staff has visited France on an official visit in the last 17 years. Saïd Chengriha will, if nothing goes wrong, be the first to do so at the end of January, reports AFP. The Algerian strongman will meet in Paris with his French counterpart, General Thierry Burkhard, to prepare for the next meeting at the Elysée Palace between the French and Algerian presidents, Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Emmanuel Macron, which they decided to set for May in a recent telephone conversation.
Chengriha and Burkhard know each other well. In August, they met during Macron's historic visit to Algeria, which served to seal reconciliation between the two countries after a long period of bilateral crisis over historical memory and the visa dispute. The army chiefs then discussed the common security threats emanating from the Sahel. They did not talk alone, however, but were accompanied by the presidents and the directors of the respective foreign intelligence services, Bernard Emié and Mehenna Djebbar.
At that meeting, the two sides agreed to strengthen military cooperation, an important step forward given that the Algerian government went so far as to ban French military aircraft from flying over its airspace in the midst of the tensions.
Chengriha's visit will serve to smooth Tebboune's path, but also, and above all, to take up with his French counterpart some of the issues that were left unresolved in August. The advance of Jihadist groups in the Sahel and the withdrawal of French troops from Mali, a neighbour with which Algeria shares a 1,300-kilometre border, has forced the Elysée to reposition its pieces in the region. In this respect, Algeria's military assistance will be decisive.
The arrival in Paris of the Chief of the General Staff is, however, conditional on the arrival in Algeria of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anne-Marie Descotes. The French diplomat is due to arrive in the Maghreb country on 25 January "at the invitation of her Algerian counterpart, Amar Belani", reports AFP.
The bilateral meetings are part of the rapprochement between France and Algeria. Macron's first five years ended with an unprecedented rift, caused by the visa crisis and controversial statements on historical memory. But the Elysée has made a U-turn in its approach to the Algerian issue.
The energy crisis in Europe has put the North African country in a favourable position: "This beginning of pacification between Paris and Algiers comes at a time when France needs to diversify its energy supplies with the war in Ukraine and consolidate these relations with the main African countries, while an anti-French sentiment is growing in some sub-Saharan public opinion", says the Solidarity Alliance of French Abroad (ASFE).
One question mark in the equation remains to be resolved. Macron had planned to visit Morocco for the second time in 2023. The official visit was originally scheduled to take place in December, but was postponed until January for reasons that were not disclosed. However, it is unlikely that the French president will decide to travel to Rabat, with which Algiers broke off bilateral relations in August 2021, before receiving Tebboune in Paris.
It remains to be seen what position the Elysée will adopt on the Western Sahara issue. France maintains an ambiguous position on the issue. While it considers Rabat's 2007 proposal, which envisages autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, as 'a basis for serious and credible discussions', the French Foreign Ministry claims to be in line with UN Security Council resolutions.
The imminent visit of Chengriha, an avowed enemy of Morocco, may perhaps influence French decision-making in this regard.
