Security, defense, Christophe Gleizes, cooperation between the two countries… What to remember from the visit of the Minister Delegate for the Armed Forces, Alice Rufo, to Algeria

At the end of a two-hour meeting with the Algerian president, Ms. Rufo also announced that French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes, held in Algeria for almost a year, would receive a consular visit “in the coming days,” the first since his incarceration.

Arrested during a report in May 2024 in Kabylie, he was sentenced on appeal in early December to seven years in prison for “apology for terrorism.” His family announced on Tuesday that he had withdrawn his appeal in March, a step aimed at paving the way for a possible pardon from President Tebboune.

This trip, the second by a member of the French government in less than three months, after the visit of Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez in mid-February, has allowed for a thaw in relations between Paris and Algiers.

Ambassador Stéphane Romatet returned to the country on this occasion, nearly a year after being recalled by Emmanuel Macron at the height of tensions.

This diplomatic crisis was triggered in August 2024 by Paris’s support for a plan for autonomy “under Moroccan sovereignty” for the disputed territory of Western Sahara. In this territory with an undefined status according to the UN, a conflict has been ongoing for 50 years between Morocco and the independence movement of the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria. Algeria immediately withdrew its ambassador from France.

The crisis worsened with the arrest in November 2024 of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal (pardoned by President Tebboune in November 2025) and after the indictment in April 2025 of an Algerian consular agent accused of involvement in the kidnapping in France of an Algerian influencer, Amir DZ.

Alice Rufo carried a letter from French President Emmanuel Macron, who is starting his final year in office and hopes to make it a “useful” year for relations between France and Algeria.

The meeting with Mr. Tebboune was an opportunity to discuss “the security and defense cooperation,” “which is very important in the current context, in Africa but also beyond,” she emphasized.

In the morning, she also discussed with the Deputy Minister of Defense, Saïd Chengriha, the revival of cooperation, especially in the fight against terrorism.

This cooperation was never completely halted but also suffered from the crisis between the two countries.

Mali, which shares 1,300 kilometers with Algeria, represents a security concern for Algiers, as the north of the country is a hotspot of instability, with the presence of jihadist groups.

The Algerian president and the French minister also discussed ways to “intensify” their cooperation on migration issues. This cooperation had already resumed after Laurent Nuñez’s visit.

They also discussed “judicial cooperation” between the two countries, particularly for the “fight against drug trafficking,” she added.

Paris’s aim is to “immunize” cooperation issues from the internal political turmoil of both countries, particularly as the French presidential election approaches, according to a French source familiar with the matter.

Addressing students at the French high school in Algiers where he accompanied the minister, Stéphane Romatet agreed that there was a need for “a little repair work on the relationship that has been damaged.” “But things are so intertwined (between France and Algeria) that this bond cannot be broken,” he assessed.

On the memorial front, the Algerian president and the French minister agreed to restart the work of the joint commission of historians. Comprising five French historians and as many Algerian historians, this commission was established in August 2022 but had not met since spring 2024.

Alice Rufo began her trip on Friday with a symbolic stop in Sétif (east), where she laid a wreath in memory of an independence activist. This city, like Guelma and Kherrata, was the scene of a bloody repression by the French army of independence protests starting on May 8, 1945, resulting in 45,000 deaths according to Algiers and between 1,500 and 20,000 deaths (including 103 Europeans) according to various sources.

For historian Benjamin Stora, present in the delegation, “a single gesture will not be enough, a whole memorial project (on French colonization of Algeria between 1830 and 1962) needs to be implemented, long, slow, complex, and patient.”