ALGIERS, Algeria
Algeria accused France on Saturday of launching a disinformation campaign and a diplomatic escalation against Algeria through statements by French officials.
It came after Algeria rejected the deportation of an Algerian social media influencer by Paris.
The accusation by the Algerian Foreign Ministry was in response to an allegation by French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Friday against Algeria alleging that it seeks to humiliate France for its refusal to receive the influencer.
The ministry accused the extreme right-wing in France of “waging a campaign of disinformation” against Algeria through known French government members.
“Algeria is in no way engaged in a logic of escalation … or humiliation” against France, it said.
It added that Paris did not notify relevant Algerian authorities about the influencer — known on social media as “Doualemn” – concerning his arrest or even a decision to deport him, in violation of a consular agreement between the two countries in 1974.
Doualemn was sent Thursday by plane to Algeria but was returned to France the same day as Algeria refused to let the influencer enter.
The Foreign Ministry added that its decision was “to allow him to respond to the accusations brought against him, and to defend himself before the French judiciary” on accusations of spreading hate speech against Algerian opposition members.
The unprecedented crisis comes amid a diplomatic row between Algiers and Paris, as Algeria accuses France of siding with Morocco’s narrative on the Western Sahara conflict.
Algeria, which supports the Polisario Front’s call for self-determination in Western Sahara, opposes France’s endorsement of Morocco’s autonomy proposal.
The crisis heightened as Algeria arrested Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal at the Algiers airport on Nov. 16 upon his arrival from France.
Sansal, a former industry ministry official dismissed in 2002, had previously asserted in French media that large parts of northwestern Algeria historically belonged to Morocco.
