Algeria Blocks Deportations From France Due to Policy Shift

In response to Paris’ support for Morocco’s claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara last week, Algeria is refusing to take back citizens who have been handed deportation orders by France, a newspaper revealed on Wednesday.

The satirical and investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine reports that relations between France and Algeria have “deteriorated” since French President Emmanuel Macron sent Moroccan King Mohammed VI a letter backing Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed region and asserting that it is part of the kingdom.

In response, Le Canard Enchaine said Algiers wants to put pressure on France by systematically returning Algerians who the French have deported.

According to a senior official quoted by the newspaper, “dozens” of Algerians handed deportation orders “make simple round trips by plane” between the two countries.

As soon as they return to French soil, they find themselves free, the paper said.

In his letter, Macron said Morocco’s plan for Western Sahara, whereby the territory is recognised as Moroccan but given some degree of autonomy, “now constitutes the only basis for reaching a just, lasting and negotiated political solution in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council”.

Without expressly recognising the “Moroccanness” of the territory, as desired by Rabat, Macron wrote that “the present and future of Western Sahara are part of Moroccan sovereignty”, marking a significant shift in French policy.

The announcement infuriated Algiers, which announced the “withdrawal with immediate effect” of its ambassador to France.

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Western Sahara, located to the south of Morocco and Algeria, is a source of conflict between the neighbours.

A former Spanish colony with rich fishing waters and phosphate reserves, the territory is controlled for the most part by Morocco but claimed by the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi independence movement that is supported and hosted by Algeria.

Polisario fought a war with Morocco from 1975 to 1991, which ended with 80 percent of the territory in Moroccan hands and a ceasefire that promised a self-determination referendum under the auspices of the United Nations that has never materialised.

The UN considers Western Sahara as a “non-autonomous territory”.

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After Macron’s letter became public, Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf insisted that “the French decision will not change anything” regarding Western Sahara’s status as “a non-self-governing territory, according to the UN”.

Attaf also threatened Paris with a series of sanctions, warning that he was “drawing the necessary conclusions regarding the French approach”.