(Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday he was concerned about the detention and the health of Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal in Algeria, and added that it was time to review agreements about immigration between the two countries.
Sansal has been detained in Algeria since November and French authorities as well as fellow writers have repeatedly called for his release.
“Boualem Sansal’s arbitrary detention, on top of his worrying health situation, is one of the elements that need to be settled before confidence (between our countries) can be fully restored,” Macron told reporters in Porto, Portugal.
He also said his government is right to review immigration agreements between the two countries over Algeria’s refusal to accept Algerians deported from France.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on Wednesday he will review a decades-old agreement that makes it easier for Algerian citizens to move to France unless Algeria agrees to take back those who are deported by the French authorities.
Already strained ties between Paris and Algiers have worsened further after an Algerian citizen whom France had long tried unsuccessfully to repatriate killed one person and injured three in a knife attack in the city of Mulhouse on Saturday.
Under a 1968 pact between France and its former colony, Algerian citizens enjoy several exceptions to French immigration laws, making it easier to move to and settle in France.
Macron said that France would not unilaterally renounce the 1968 agreements, and that he had already had discussions with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune about updating them.
“There should be no political game-playing. We want to be respected and we will give respect,” he said.
Bayrou said on Wednesday a list of Algerian nationals to be readmitted to Algeria will be presented to the Algerian authorities and that if there is no progress at the end of a six-week period, France reserves the right to call these agreements into question.
Ties between Paris and Algiers have deteriorated in recent months since France recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. That decision has angered Algiers, which backs the Polisario Front that is seeking an independent state.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Makini Brice and Peter Graff)
