the National Assembly opposes the denunciation of a 1968 agreement with Algeria

The treaty confers a special status on Algerians in France in terms of movement, residence and employment. The LR deputies wanted to put an end to it, believing that the text “facilitates immigration”.

The initiative was short-lived. The resolution proposed by Les Républicains (LR) deputies to ask the French authorities to denounce the Franco-Algerian agreement of 1968 was rejected by the National Assembly, Thursday, December 7, with 151 votes against and 114 for. The text was examined within the framework of the LR group’s parliamentary niche, a day during which it can put proposals on the agenda.

The 1968 treaty, concluded at the end of the Algerian War, confers a special status on Algerians in France in terms of movement, residence and employment. It has already been amended three times, in 1985, 1994 and 2001.

Under this text, “Algerians benefit from freedom of establishment to carry out a business activity or an independent profession. Algerian nationals can access more quickly than nationals of other States the issuance of a residence permit valid for ten years”summarizes the Ministry of the Interior.

The unfavorable government, the divided majority

“We want to put an end to this legal exception which facilitates the immigration of Algerian nationals to our country”, wrote the authors of the resolution proposed by LR. Their draft resolution, even if adopted, would not have had binding value.

The majority was divided on this proposal. The Horizons group, which is part of it, itself brought this subject to the surface in the spring, and its members present at the meeting voted in favor of the resolution, according to the details of the vote, published on the Assembly website. Some Macronist deputies did not view the sending of a “signal” to Algeria, and two deputies from the Renaissance group voted in favor of the text.

But the Renaissance group agreed on an unfavorable vote. A denunciation would be counterproductive, estimated the Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade Olivier Becht, for whom the risk was to provoke “a reaction from the Algerian authorities which would have serious consequences and could lead to freezing the migration dialogue”.

“You want to please the most extreme fringe of your electorate”, ecologist Sabrina Sebaihi told LR, stressing that the agreement also included provisions unfavorable to Algerians. The communist Soumya Bourouaha also judged that it was not a question “no privileges and even less of an anomaly” : “These are the consequences of a common history that remains.” For the deputy of La France insoumise Bastien Lachaud, with this text from the LR, “you’d think you were reading a far-right leaflet”.