Algeria president demands ‘respect’ from France to return envoy

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said yesterday that the return of the Algerian ambassador to France was “conditional on total respect for the Algerian state”,  Ennahar TV reported.

“We can’t act like nothing happened … and our ambassador will return to Paris only when France shows total respect for the Algerian state,” Tebboune said in an interview aired live on the local media.

“We forget that it [Algeria] was once a French colony… History should not be falsified. We can’t act like nothing happened,” he added.

Last weekend, Algeria recalled its ambassador from Paris and banned French military planes from using its airspace following media reports which quoted French President Emmanuel Macron as saying that Algeria was ruled by a “political-military system” that had “totally re-written” its history.

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