French Ambassador Stéphane Romatet returned to Algiers after more than a year away, but his homecoming did not end the crisis between France and Algeria. The Élysée Palace said the point of the move was to “restore effective dialogue,” not to pretend the rupture had been fixed.
Romatet’s return comes after months in which the two countries traded accusations, expelled consular officials and hardened their positions. France recalled its ambassador in April 2025 after those expulsions and sharp political disagreements, and Algerian media close to the regime later said Romatet had been declared persona non grata by Algerian authorities.
The break widened after France recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara, a move that angered Algiers and deepened a rift already driven by politics and migration. French Minister of the Interior Laurent Nuñez said migration cooperation had been virtually paralysed for much of the crisis, with Paris accusing Algeria of blocking the readmission of irregular Algerian migrants and refusing to issue the consular safe-conducts needed for deportations.
That dispute now runs alongside another case that has become a symbol of the fallout. French reporter Christophe Gleizes was arrested in Algeria after carrying out journalistic work related to Kabylia and the JS Kabylie football club, and an Algerian court sentenced him to seven years in prison for glorifying terrorism. The court criticized his contacts years earlier with people linked to the Kabyle autonomist movement MAK, which Algeria classified as a terrorist organization in 2021.
For France, the Gleizes case has sharpened the sense that the political crisis with Algeria is no longer only about diplomacy or migration, but about a broader deterioration in trust. Romatet’s return may reopen a channel of communication, but the terms of the dispute remain intact and the most sensitive issues are still unresolved.
