France moves to repair ties with Algeria as ambassador returns to Algiers

France's ambassador to Algeria has returned to the North African country along with a senior envoy set to commemorate a colonial-era massacre, a move seeking to improve frayed relations.

Ties between France and Algeria have been fraught since 2024, when Paris officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, where Algeria supports the pro-independence Polisario Front.

French Deputy Armed Forces Minister Alice Rufo landed in Setif, eastern Algeria, on Friday to attend ceremonies marking the 1945 repression of mainly Muslim Algerian protesters by French colonial troops.

Rufo was accompanied by Ambassador Stephane Romatet, who will resume his duties in the North African country more than a year after being recalled from his post.

The visit marks a major sign of rapprochement between Algiers and Paris, with the Elysee saying it reflected the "determination to address relations between France and Algeria with honesty, while respecting all the memories connected to them" and to "restore an effective dialogue".

The 1945 crackdown led by French General Raymond Duval left as many as 45,000 people dead, according to Algerian figures. Pro-independence protests broke out following a rally on May 8 of that year marking the allied victory over Nazi Germany.

Tensions between Algiers and Paris worsened in 2024 over the arrest of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal -- who was pardoned last November -- and in April 2025 when an Algerian consular official was charged in France over the alleged abduction of Algerian influencer and government critic Amir DZ.

Friday's visit is the second trip to Algeria by a French cabinet ministry in less than three months, following Interior Minister Laurent Nunez's visit in February.

While both countries show signs of a diplomatic thaw, an unresolved issue remains the detention of a French sports journalist in Algeria on terror charges.

Christophe Gleizes, 37, was arrested in May 2024 while travelling to northeastern Algeria's Kabylia region to write about the country's most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie.

In June last year, he was sentenced to seven years in jail for "glorifying terrorism" after being accused of having been in contact with a member of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group that Algiers has designated a terrorist organisation.

His family said last week Gleizes had withdrawn his appeal to Algeria's highest court, a move seen as opening the way for a presidential pardon.

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