The back-and-forth between France and Algeria seems endless, to the point of dizziness. A thaw follows a storm before a new tempest arises, ultimately leading to yet another lull. This diplomatic imbalance reflects the increasingly complex French-Algerian relationship, caught between opposing forces – centrifugal as well as and centripetal – lacking any solid framework to channel them. Barely a week after the improvement following French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot's visit to Algiers on April 6, which eased a vicious eight-month-long crisis, thunder is rumbling once again between the two capitals.

Algiers decided on Sunday, April 13, to expel a dozen agents of the French embassy in retaliation for a French judge's preventive detention the previous day of an official from the Algerian consulate in a Paris suburb. The official was among three people charged in the investigation into the abduction and false imprisonment – lasting 27 hours – of influencer Amir Boukhors. The events occurred on April 29 and 30, 2024, in the Paris region. According to Boukhors, the operation was orchestrated to intimidate him and dissuade him from continuing his revelations about the misconduct of certain Algerian regime clans. Boukhors, known as "Amir DZ," is an opponent of the Algerian government and has more than a million followers on TikTok.

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