France will expel Algerian diplomats in response to Algiers' plans to send more French officials home, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Wednesday, May 14, as relations between the two countries deteriorate. The connection between France, the former colonial power, and Algeria, Africa's largest nation by land area, has been beset by a series of problems in recent months. Barrot told the broadcaster BFMTV that he would summon Algeria's chargé d'affaires to inform him of the decision, which he said was "perfectly proportionate at this point" to the Algerian move, which he called "unjustified and unjustifiable."
Barrot had already announced on Monday that France would respond "immediately, firmly" after Algeria summoned the chargé d'affaires of the French embassy in Algiers on Sunday to notify him of the expulsion of French officials, who were on temporary reinforcement missions, from Algerian territory.
France in April ordered the expulsion of 12 Algerian diplomats and consular officials and recalled its ambassador, after Algeria ordered 12 French officials to leave in response to the arrest of an Algerian official in France.
Relations became strained last year when France recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara area, in which Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front organization. Ties further soured when Algeria arrested and jailed French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal in November, on national security charges.
As well as contemporary problems, relations are shadowed by the 1954-1962 war that led to Algeria's independence from France.