Algeria has immediately returned an Algerian influencer who was deported by France back to where he came from, aggravating diplomatic tensions between both countries.
The North African country’s authorities refused to accept their own national, influencer, who posts under the name “Doualemn”, and put him on a back plane to France moments after he landed, turning his deportation into a practically useless return trip of a few hours.
He was later placed in an administrative detention centre in Île-de-France, on January 9.
He had been forced to leave France for allegedly inciting hatred and violence.
Doualemn was one several Algerians with a significant following on social media who had recently called for attacking people connected to the Algerian opposition.
The influencer, whose real name was given as Boualem N, is a resident of Montpellier. He reportedly has 138,000 followers on TikTok.
He had warned people on his channel not to demonstrate against the Algerian regime in France on January 1 and called for an activist named Cohen to be killed because he had “shared” his video.
That led to his expulsion from France, as was the case with two other so-called influencers posting as “Zazouyoucef” and “Imadtintin”. They had similarly called for attacks on sympathisers of the Algerian opposition and made anti-Semitic comments.
Imadtintin was arrested after he posted a video that garnered nearly 858,000 views. In the recording, he said: “I swear before Allah, we are going to rape you all, in Algeria and in France. Here, those who know how to handle weapons will finish you off… No one will defend you in France.”
He also called for people to be “burned alive, killed and raped on French soil”.
On January 9, a French-Algerian TikToker in her 50s, Sofia Benlemmane, was taken into custody for allegedly having disseminated hate messages and threats.
She was held over accusations of making “death threats and public incitement to hatred”, Nelson Bouard, interregional director of the national police, told news agency AFP.
Despite Doualemn being in favour of the Algerian regime, the country did not allow him in, citing an “exceptional law” of 2008. That provided for the exclusion from the territory of any national likely to represent a threat, including terrorism.
According to French officials, cited by news outlet Europe 1, the Algerian authorities seemed to have “gone beyond this law”, and abused their power.
French police sources told the news outlet that the officers who had accompanied the influencer on the flight were forced to return with him. Leaving him there would have violated international law and risked their own arrest and detention, they said.
Doualemn entered France illegally in 1988 at the age of 23. According to the deportation order, hel has been convicted multiple times for common criminal offences.
In 2010, he was granted legal residency as the parent of a French child.
French government officials said: “It is a terrible signal that Algeria is giving to France,” adding he suspected the move was designed to aggravate France.
“It is clear that Algeria is seeking to humiliate France,”said interior minister Bruno Retailleau, stressing that relations with Algeria had “reached a single extremely worrying point”.
Valérie Pécresse, President of the Île-de-France region, denounced what she called a “new, unbearable provocation”.
Many on the Right have been demanding firm measures against Algeria, in particular the end of the Franco-Algerian agreement. That is a bilateral treaty that governs migration, residency and employment rights for Algerian nationals in France, providing them with specific privileges compared to other non-European Union foreigners.
Jordan Bardella, President of France’s right-wing National Rally (RN) party, said: “Faced with the openly hostile attitude of Algeria, which has regularly refused to take back its unwanted nationals, we must finally be clear-sighted and dare to take a stand: Freezing private fund transfers, suspending the issuing of visas, ending public development aid, challenging the Franco-Algerian treaty of 1968.
“France must finally earn the respect of a country that has long since exceeded all limits of indecency.”
Eric Ciotti a right-wing MP allied with the RN, said: “France cannot accept to be humiliated in this way by Algeria.
“The only response is the immediate revocation of the 1968 agreements and no longer welcoming a single Algerian in France.”
Hard -ight MEP Sarah Knafo said it was time “to divorce Algeria for good”.
“But the problem is that we had custody of the children and we continue to pay child support. So we are doing what we should have done: firmness and an end to naivety,” she added.
Doualemn’s lawyer laid the blame on the French GGovernment.
He told the daily Le Figaro that the administration had “rushed his deportation” to avoid it “being examined by a judge”.
Doualemn’s trial is scheduled for February 24 in Montpellier.
France and Algeria’s diplomatic contacts have been further on the edge since the December 17 arrest of the 75-year-old French-Algerian writer and regime critic in Algeria, Boualem Sansal.
France has declared it stood squarely behind Sansal and announced a new partnership with Morocco, a geopolitical enemy of Algeria.
Algeria said it regarded the clampdown on the three Algerian influencers as part of that.
Regarding France’s support of Sansal, the People’s National Assembly, the lower house of the Algerian parliament, strongly condemned the remarks made against Algeria by French President Emmanuel Macron.
In late December, it expressed its “firm condemnation of the irresponsible statements issued by the French President, which constitute a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Algeria and an attack on its sovereignty and dignity concerning an issue related to Algerian laws”.
https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/01/algeria-sends-deported-algerian-straight-back-to-france