Former French Ambassador Xavier Driencourt Urges Trump’s Mediation in Algeria Row: “A Tweet Could Sway Algiers”

✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada

Despite France’s inflammatory rhetoric and veiled threats, Algeria maintains composure and defends its legitimate rights—refusing to yield to neocolonial pressure over justice, memory, and geopolitical integrity

Algiers, Algeria | May 11th, 2025 — As Algeria continues to respond with composure and sovereign restraint amid mounting diplomatic tension, France appears to be sinking deeper into a spiral of provocative and inflammatory discourse, reflecting an enduring inability to come to terms with Algeria’s assertive foreign policy and its rejection of subservient bilateral relations.

The latest escalation stems from France’s political establishment—not only from the usual far-right voices hostile to Algeria such as Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, but now also from previously moderate figures like Sophie Prima, spokesperson for former Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government. Speaking during a press conference following the French Cabinet meeting on Wednesday evening, Prima declared, with overt defiance: “The situation with Algeria has reached a dead end,” and openly threatened to intensify the so-called “gradual response” strategy toward Algiers.

This rhetorical aggression followed remarks made just two days earlier by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who described French-Algerian relations as being in a “stalemate” due to Algiers’ alleged unwillingness to comply with demands for the release of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, currently detained in Algeria under national legal procedures.

France’s habitual double standards were once again on display. While Paris demands Algeria’s compliance on domestic legal matters, it has yet to acknowledge or take responsibility for its own egregious breaches of international norms—chief among them, its position on Western Sahara, where France’s support for Morocco flagrantly contradicts United Nations resolutions. Even more egregiously, French intelligence agents staged a blatant abduction of an Algerian consular employee in broad daylight on the streets of Paris—an act Algeria considers an unacceptable breach of diplomatic protocols and national dignity.

France’s belligerence has not stopped at ministerial levels. Xavier Driencourt, the former French ambassador to Algeria and long-time apologist for French postcolonial dominance, surfaced on France 5 television with an astonishing proposal: he suggested France seek American or Italian mediation to pressure Algiers into releasing Sansal. In a surreal display of diplomatic wishful thinking, he claimed, “If the American president were to post a tweet calling for Sansal’s release, I’m convinced the Algerians would respond positively,” citing, bizarrely, the strength of Algerian-American ties as a potential lever.

These suggestions reveal more than just desperation—they expose France’s waning influence in North Africa, and its discomfort with Algeria’s increasingly independent, multipolar foreign policy. Algeria’s strategic partnerships with nations like China, Russia, Turkey, and the U.S. are shaping a new geopolitical reality—one that no longer revolves around France’s outdated pretensions of tutelage.

In contrast to France’s increasingly erratic behavior, Algeria has demonstrated diplomatic maturity and principled resolve. It has refrained from retaliatory escalation and instead chosen to uphold its sovereign rights. As President Abdelmadjid Tebboune reaffirmed in a solemn address marking the May 8, 1945 massacres, “The memory file will never be subjected to denial or oblivion.”

This principled position includes Algeria’s non-negotiable demand for French acknowledgment and responsibility for colonial crimes, a central issue in the historical reckoning between the two nations.

Paris may be spiraling into a public relations and diplomatic blunder, but Algeria has made it clear: it will not bow to blackmail, not abandon its memory, and will never again accept relations built on asymmetry and disrespect.

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