Algeria-France tensions: “We must be patient” to hope for reconciliation, according to historian Benjamin Stora

Incarceration of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, return to Paris of an Algerian influencer expelled for his calls for violence. Why this sudden escalation?

Last year, Emmanuel Macron decided to support the Moroccan plan on Western Sahara. However, Algiers supports the region’s separatists. This position ignited the powder. It came to impact the memorial work undertaken after the submission of my report. Algeria and France maintain an unusual relationship on the diplomatic scene which explains the regular appearance of points of tension. Millions of people on French soil have a link with Algeria. These disputes cannot therefore be reduced to a question of foreign policy, they also have a dimension of domestic policy.

Is Algeria really seeking reconciliation?

It is difficult to estimate the general position of the Algerian population on all these questions. But the strength of local nationalism should not be underestimated. At the same time, fortunately there is a real desire to move away from this culture of war. The Algerian government did not immediately grasp the hand extended in recent years by Emmanuel Macron. He was initially silent, then set up a joint commission of historians which met several times between 2022 and 2024. It was a good signal but this work is now interrupted.

Is the memory of the war of independence an obstacle on the Algerian side?

It makes it possible to legitimize the power in place. As it is even the basis of the creation of the Algerian nation-state, it is used for political purposes. For extremist factions, notably Islamo-conservative ones, Algeria would even have to completely break with France. But this exploitation also exists on the other side of the Mediterranean. Recognizing the abuses committed by France still leads to an outcry within a French identity fringe.

Does the subject still remain as sensitive in our country?

For the youngest French people in Algeria (the pieds-noirs), the moments linked to the Algerian war have faded. But not for older people. Current controversies bring buried memories to the surface. The evocation of the Evian agreements of 1962, which many still consider to be poorly negotiated by General de Gaulle, continues to animate family conversations. And then, the regrets of lost opportunities to build a fraternal Algeria return to the minds of others, also numerous. For everyone, Algeria, as a country, remains present in the hearts.

Has France carried out the necessary historical work?

Critics constantly repeat that we must put an end to perpetual repentance. But there never was! With the opening of archives relating to the Algerian War and the recognition of France’s responsibility in the disappearance of Maurice Audin, an activist of the Algerian Communist Party, we are only just beginning this work of memory. While all these advances are going in the right direction, there is still much to do. European cemeteries are abandoned in Algeria and they deserve to be maintained to keep this memory alive. France should also help more actively to decontaminate the sites of the nuclear tests it carried out in Algeria in the 1960s.

Some voices wish to return to the 1968 agreement which entitles Algerians settling in France to an exceptional regime. What do you think?

It is presented as a measure facilitating immigration. But this is not the case. It was even thought to be more restrictive than the Evian agreements, which guaranteed free movement between France and Algeria. In 1993, the Minister of the Interior, Charles Pasqua, even toughened it by removing the automatic granting of nationality for people born in French Algeria. Going back to it wouldn’t change anything.

Do you maintain hope for true reconciliation, while hundreds of thousands of people follow influencers hostile to our country?

Memory work is long and permanent. France has entered a new stage of this rapprochement. Now is not the time to give up and withdraw into yourself. Expelling everyone is not the only solution, we must go beyond the logic of confrontation, come to terms with this shared history that is so passionate and be patient.