On 6 March 2025, Algeria summoned French Ambassador Stéphane Romatet to convey its opposition to the planned Franco-Moroccan military maneuvers scheduled for September 2025 in Errachidia, near the Algerian border. Algeria called the “Chergui 2025” maneuvers as a “provocation that would further worsen the already tense relations between Algiers and Paris.
Relations between Algeria and France have been strained ever since France changed its neutral stance in the Western Sahara crisis, essentially endorsing the Moroccan position, which Algeria opposes. In addition, France and Algeria have been on opposite sides in the debate over France’s history and colonization of Algeria, and the rise of the far-right in France is intensifying the diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
Both France and Algeria have been making steps that led to a worsening of their diplomatic relations, including France’s tightening of its policies against migrants, and Algeria’s arresting Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal.
The latest episode of the crisis is the recent visits by high-ranking French officials to the disputed Western Sahara. The visits to the region of French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati and Senate President Gérard Larcher were perceived in Algiers as further diplomatic provocations.
The upcoming military exercises involving French troops in Morocco near the Algerian border are likely to raise more anti-France sentiment in Algeria.
