After nearly two years of absence stemming from diplomatic tensions between Algiers and Paris, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune says he no longer opposes the return of French ambassador Stéphane Romatet — a sign of a possible thaw in the bilateral relationship.
Ambassador Romatet was recalled to Paris in 2025 amid a sharp deterioration in relations between the two countries.
According to several diplomatic sources, the matter for the envoy’s return was raised during the visit of French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to Algiers on February 16 and 17, in the course of talks on security cooperation and bilateral relations.
Romatet has not returned to his post since being recalled to Paris at the height of the Franco-Algerian diplomatic crisis. The ambassador found himself at the centre of a fresh controversy in early 2026 following the broadcast of a television report that Algerian authorities deemed critical — an episode that laid bare the persistent fragility of political dialogue between the two capitals.
In this context, Tebboune’s statement looks less like a genuine diplomatic turning point than a limited gesture of goodwill. For several years, the relationship between Algiers and Paris has swung between occasional rapprochements and recurring friction — frequently fueled by disputes over the memory of colonisation, as well as by migration and security files.
For many observers, these tensions also reflect the contradictions of Algerian diplomacy, which alternates between displays of firmness and signals of normalisation without managing to put its relationship with its principal European partner on a stable footing. France remains a central player for Algeria — whether in trade, security cooperation or the management of migration flows.
In this volatile diplomatic landscape, the eventual return of the French ambassador would amount to little more than a technical step in a bilateral dialogue that is regularly derailed by internal political crises and diplomatic one-upmanship.
More broadly, the episode illustrates Algiers’ persistent difficulty in anchoring its foreign policy on a stable trajectory, even as the region undergoes rapid geopolitical realignment.
MK/AK/te/lb/as/APA