LISBON: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday warned Algeria against playing \u201cpolitical games\u201d with frayed diplomatic ties between the two countries, notably over immigration.
\nRelations between Paris and Algiers have been strained since Macron recognized Moroccan sovereignty of the disputed territory of Western Sahara in July last year.
\nBut they have worsened after Algiers refused to accept the return of undocumented Algerian migrants from France.
\nLast weekend, one of them, a 37-year-old man, went on a stabbing rampage in the eastern city of Mulhouse, killing one person and wounding several others.
\n\u201cWe won\u2019t make progress if there\u2019s no work, we can\u2019t talk to each other through the press, that\u2019s ridiculous, it never works like that,\u201d Macron told journalists during a visit to the Portuguese city of Porto.
\n\u201c(Relations) shouldn\u2019t be subject to political games,\u201d he said.
\nHe hoped \u201cmillions of French people born to Algerian parents\u201d would not be \u201ccaught up in these debates.\u201d
\nHard-line French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has led the verbal attacks on Algeria in the media, fueling tensions between the countries.
\n\u201cNothing can take precedence over the security of our compatriots,\u201d Macron said, with emotions still high after last weekend\u2019s attack in Mulhouse.
\nAgreements mandating the automatic return of nationals, signed between the two countries in 1994, \u201cmust be fully respected,\u201d he added.
\nIn recent months, France has arrested and deported several undocumented Algerians on suspicion of inciting violence, only for Algeria to send back one of those expelled.
\nFrance warned that it could restrict visas and, as a result, limit development aid.
\nMacron also voiced fears about the health of detained Franco Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, arrested in November last year and held in Algeria on national security charges.
\nIn mid-December, his publishers, Gallimard, said he had been hospitalized.
\nMacron said that Sansal was being held in \u201carbitrary detention\u201d and that resolving the matter would help restore confidence in diplomatic ties.
\nSansal, 75, is known for his strong support of free speech and for opposing authoritarianism and Islamism.
\nAlgeria\u2019s government has previously criticized Macron for \u201cblatant and unacceptable interference in an internal Algerian affair.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LISBON: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday warned Algeria against playing \u201cpolitical games\u201d with frayed diplomatic ties between the two countries, notably over immigration. Relations between Paris and Algiers have been strained since Macron recognized Moroccan sovereignty of the disputed territory of Western Sahara in July last year. But they have worsened after Algiers refused …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77805,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77785\/revisions\/77805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}