Algeria: De Villepin denounces Retailleau's "one-upmanship", the minister "doesn't give a damn"

He remains firm despite the criticism. "I do not accept that France is humiliated (...) Who in France can maintain that the harshness is not on the side of the Algerian regime?" asked the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau on Monday, on the sidelines of the Agricultural Show. By "pointing the finger at the case of the writer Boualem Sansal imprisoned in Algeria." On Saturday, he said he was ready to enter into a "power struggle" with the latter. The cause was Algiers' refusal to take back one of its nationals under an obligation to leave French territory, before he killed a man and injured seven others in a terrorist attack in Mulhouse .

Asked about the barbs of former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who had deplored an "overbidding" in his remarks on Algeria , Bruno Retailleau replied that he "didn't give a damn" . "There is a man (Boualem Sansal) whose life is in danger and a country that ignores international law. Dominique de Villepin should know international law" , replied the tenant of Beauvau.

"I say things as I think them and if it bothers some people, it's the same," he added, believing that France "did not deserve" the treatment that Algiers is giving it. "Especially since the President of the Republic extended his hand. Have we been repaid? No!" he lamented. The often rocky relations between France and Algeria have deteriorated since the summer of 2024 after the announcement of France's support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Several issues have then continued to darken bilateral relations, including the incarceration since mid-November of Boualem Sansal and the arrest in France of several Algerian influencers for advocating violence.