Algeria Keeps Defeating Europe. Macron Furious | Fethi

## Introduction The conversation with Algerian commentator Fethi frames Algeria not as a passive relic of decolonization but as an active architect of its own post‑colonial trajectory and of a wider multipolar world. What emerges is a portrait of a country whose foreign policy, internal politics, cultural choices, and memory work are inseparable from 132 years of French rule and a brutal war of liberation. Far from being merely historical baggage, that legacy shapes Algeria’s insistence on sovereignty, non‑intervention, and strategic autonomy—and explains why diplomatic episodes with European governments, especially France, continue to be volatile and deeply symbolic. Understanding Algeria today means reading history into policy and policy into the politics of remembrance. ## Algeria foreign policy and Europe Algeria’s foreign policy is grounded in three pillars: non‑alignment, strict sovereignty, and anti‑interventionism. The conversation underlines that these are not rhetorical positions but operational constraints shaping Algeria’s choices. Non‑alignment allows Algiers to navigate competing global powers without formal bloc commitments; sovereignty is treated as sacrosanct; and anti‑interventionism informs Algeria’s reluctance to accept foreign military footprints or to normalize external meddling in regional affairs. Economically and diplomatically, Algeria cultivates broad ties across Europe—Italy, Germany, Spain among them—but the relationship with France remains an outlier, laden with politicized history. The result is pragmatic engagement with much of Europe combined with a punctuated, often confrontational, relationship with Paris. ## Colonial rule and independence war The contours of contemporary Algerian identity and policy are best read through the violence of colonization and the intensities of the independence struggle. French colonization from 1830 to 1962 was not merely administrative; it involved settler colonization, land expropriation, cultural erasure, and campaigns that dramatically altered demographic trajectories. The Seven Years’ War of Liberation (1954–1962) codified popular resistance into a nationwide conflict that combined urban insurrection and rural guerrilla warfare. Key moments—the coordinated attacks that launched the war, the North Constantine actions, and the Battle of Algiers—galvanized domestic support and international attention. The war inflicted deep demographic and social scars: estimates of Algerian deaths during the war and the broader colonial period point to millions lost and to a society whose development was deliberately stunted by occupation and settler domination. ## Evian Accords and post 1962 state The Evian Accords legally ended the war but their promise was compromised by violence and mass departures. Negotiated in 1962, the accords were intended to provide a peaceful transfer and a framework for coexistence, including protections for French settlers who had lived in Algeria for generations. Instead, the emergence of the OAS—an organization vehemently opposed to Algerian independence—saw a campaign of terror that propelled a mass exodus known as "la valise ou le cercueil" (the suitcase or the coffin). The departure of the settler elite deprived the newborn state of administrative and technical cadres, deepening the challenge of post‑colonial reconstruction. That vacuum helped justify a strong single‑party state in the initial years: the violence of the preceding conflict made pluralism appear risky and central control seem necessary to prevent fragmentation. Thus the immediate consequences of Evian shaped Algeria’s political path for decades. ## France Algeria crisis today The present crisis between Algeria and France is described as the most acute in decades, and the causes are both symbolic and geopolitical. Historical resentment—what some historians call a lingering French inability to fully accept Algerian independence—mixes with contemporary diplomatic frictions. Recent flashpoints involved declarations and recognitions around Western Sahara, shifting alignments in North Africa, and accusations involving third‑party influence. The conversation highlights how French domestic currents, including nostalgia for "French Algeria," periodically find their way into foreign policy, producing explosive diplomatic exchanges. For Algeria, France remains a unique interlocutor: proximity, shared history, and economic interdependence mean disputes are never merely bilateral quarrels but struggles over memory, dignity, and the meaning of sovereignty in post‑colonial space. ## Language policy and identity Language policy is one of the arenas where memory, identity, and power intersect most visibly. Algeria’s linguistic landscape—Arabic, Tamazight (Berber), and the persistent presence of French—reflects layered histories. Post‑independence, policy tilted toward promoting Arabic and asserting cultural decolonization, while Berber communities fought for recognition of Tamazight. Meanwhile, French endures as the language of science, higher education, and international commerce, complicating straightforward narratives of decolonization. The debate about language is not only pragmatic but moral: it concerns which histories are prioritized in schools, which literatures and sciences are accessible to young people, and how national identity is narrated. Language policy therefore becomes a barometer of Algeria’s struggle to reconcile anti‑colonial sovereignty with the practical legacies of a colonial past. ## Diaspora politics and repair The Algerian diaspora—particularly in France—is both a bridge and a fault line. Migrant communities have deep family, commercial, and cultural ties across the Mediterranean, yet they also navigate social exclusion, identity politics, and the shadow of colonial violence. The conversation emphasizes that diaspora politics cannot be reduced to personal remittances or electoral clout; it is also a theater for historical reckoning. Calls for recognition of colonial crimes, debates over memory laws, and the politics of repatriation and compensation all revolve around diasporic demands for symbolic and material repair. Algeria’s own posture—at once protective of sovereignty and eager for diasporic expertise—shapes how it engages these communities. Repair is therefore not just about state reparations but about constructing narratives that allow diaspora members and homeland citizens to live with a shared, contested past. ## Jazair Hope and history project Embedded in this political and historical thicket is an effort at public historiography and civic education, personified by initiatives such as Jazair Hope. The project, as discussed in the conversation, aims to recover and disseminate Algerian history in ways that restore dignity and provide contextualized, accessible narratives for younger generations. This is not mere nostalgia; it is an active contestation of how history is told, by whom, and to what end. Projects that translate archival material, popularize films like The Battle of Algiers, and host conversations with historians contribute to a plural memory space in which victims and actors of the past can be understood on their own terms. In doing so, they feed back into policy debates—about language, diplomacy, and diaspora—by shaping public consciousness and, therefore, the political possibilities of repair and reconciliation. Conclusion The lasting lesson from the conversation is that Algeria’s domestic policies and external stances are inseparable from its memory of colonization and the war of liberation. Its insistence on non‑alignment and sovereignty emerges not from abstract geopolitical theory but from lived experience: a long, brutal history of dispossession that made sovereignty a moral and strategic imperative. Contemporary disputes with France and other European actors are thus less about routine diplomacy than about unresolved history meeting modern geopo

Macron Furious! Algeria Keeps Defeating Europe | Fethi The multipolar revolution continues. It was started decades ago and it is picking up steam. Today we'll look at one of the early leaders of the anti-colonial movement. I speak with Algerian YouTuber Fethi of @JazairHope about his country's leadership role in the fight against colonial oppression and for a multipolar world. We discuss the country's foreign policy, the legacy of French colonization, the war of independence and the long crisis with France. Links: Jazair Hope: https://jazairhope.org Jazair Hope YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JazairHope Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:53 Algeria foreign policy and Europe 00:05:53 Colonial rule and independence war 00:19:47 Evian Accords and post 1962 state 00:25:56 France Algeria crisis today 00:33:12 Language policy and identity 00:43:22 Diaspora politics and repair 00:49:46 Jazair Hope and history project #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. My name is Pascal Lottaz, and I'm joined today for the first time by an Algerian YouTuber, Feti, of the French-language channel Jazir Hope. Feti, welcome. #Fethi Thank you very much, Pascal, for having me. It's really a pleasure to be on your platform. Look, your platform for me is one of the most important platforms in recent years, from the perspective that it really gathers the elite from around the world—and not just any elite. I mean, the elite that is really looking for positive development in our world. So, pleasure to be with you. #Pascal Thank you very much for that. And I must say, I was on your platform before, tried my best in French. And now we are doing this in English because we said we actually want to look a little bit at Algeria. I've never actually covered Algeria on this show. And since you're there, and since you are actually also talking about hope, about how to construct something positive, I thought we really need to cover this. Like, where is Algeria today in its relationship with Europe, with France? Where is that relationship coming from? And where do you think it's going? #Fethi -- 1 of 14 -- Look, let's start first by telling what are the key pillars of Algeria's foreign policy. So, in a few words, Algeria bases its foreign policy on non-alignment—avoiding former blocs and keeping strategic autonomy. It is also based on sovereignty, with a very, very strong emphasis on that. So, non- interference in internal affairs and vice versa. Algeria also avoids interfering in other countries' internal affairs. Anti-intervention—very strict also. Algeria rejects foreign military involvement, either by Algeria itself or when we see countries getting involved in other countries militarily. And also, it positions itself as a regional and international mediator. There are many instances that we can mention later on of such intermediation. So if we take that as a background of Algeria's current foreign policy and we look at the history, it stems mainly from the 132 years of colonization by France. So these are five or six generations of colonization. After independence, it got embedded in the DNA of Algerians that we protect our sovereignty, and also we respect the sovereignty of others. If we look at the current, the last few decades, the relationship with Europe has two aspects. One, we need to look specifically at France, and then the rest of Europe. We enjoy excellent relationships with almost all European countries. We can name Italy, we can name Germany, we can name other countries, though the relationships, economic and political, are less intense. But we can also certainly name Spain, though there have been ups and downs in the relationship with Spain, but currently they are very good. And then, separately, the relationship with France is most of the time quoted as a love-and-hate relationship, which I don't like, but definitely it is a very tense relationship. There have been a few good periods, many bad periods, and recently, in the last five years, I think we are going through the most acute crisis in this relationship. We can get into the details, but I would like to refer to some analysis done by someone who has specialized in the relationship between Algeria and France, namely, and very, very, very well-known, Benjamin Stora. And he has summarized the relationship between France and Algeria, saying that in 80% of the cases—and we can refer to his study—80% of the crises between Algeria and France are initiated because of something that started in France. And from my point of view, what the French— not the French people, but the French government—have not gotten, or are unable to get anyway, is that they have not swallowed the independence of Algeria yet. They still deal with Algeria from the perspective of a director and a subordinate. They have to be the boss. #Pascal Can you give us a short history of Algeria's War of Independence, which was long and bloody? If I'm not wrong, several million people died in that war in the 50s and 60s. But can you give me the dates and the most important things that happened up until independence? #Fethi -- 2 of 14 -- Yeah, of course, the colonization started in 1830 and independence in 1962. So this is 132 years of colonization. #Fethi In between, there have been many, many small war resistances, okay, through the 132 years. The main war started in 1954, and it lasted seven years. During this war, there were 1.5 million dead on the side of Algeria. But the interesting fact, Pascal, is that, and what is not very well known, there have been many, many more deaths, many more millions when we look at the full period. And to illustrate that, if you take the birth rate of countries like Morocco or Egypt, which are in the same geography... And you take the population of Algeria in 1832, at the start of the colonization, and you apply that birth rate. So the population of Algeria in 1832 was around three to four million. At independence, the population was eight million. If you apply the birth rate of Morocco and Egypt, the population should have been between 18 and 25 million. So for countries in the same geography, something different was happening in Algeria. And that's why Algeria was one of the countries that was a candidate for the big replacement well before Palestine. #Pascal Yeah, because the French started settling there, right? I mean, there were entire white districts and parts of Algeria, although run differently from South Africa. Can you explain the apartheid of Algeria and the way that the French managed their colonial possession? How did they do it, especially compared to this apartheid system in the South? #Fethi Well, it was very, very, very, very hard. So, as you said, there was population colonization. There was extermination of the local populations through several means, through expropriation of good land, through clear extermination of tribes in different parts of Algeria. And this is what explains the abnormal growth in the population between the start of the colonization and the independence. You referred to the apartheid. During the apartheid, it was a similar kind of approach. What was different is that after independence, the route taken by Algerian policy and the route taken by South African policy were quite different. As a matter of fact, Mandela and de Klerk got inspired by what didn’t work in the Algerian independence to establish South Africa’s post-apartheid policy. Coming back to the colonization of Algeria by France, the intention was clearly to replace the culture, to erase the religion, to replace the population. So it was a clear population colonization intent. #Pascal -- 3 of 14 -- And the war then, so you said ’54 until ’61 or ’62, how did that unfold? I mean, how did the resistance movement start in the beginning, and how did the Algerians manage to beat the French? And we’re talking here about post–Second World War France. We’re talking about a United Nations member of the Security Council, France, that was still holding on to a colonial possession. And because it was not just a colony, you know, like Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States—that’s kind of a territory—Algeria was an integral part. Actually, it is quite similar to that, an integral part of the French state, right? Which is why the Algerian possession was counted toward the territory of the Coal and Steel Community, the early version of what is today the European Union. I mean, it was what another researcher, Peo Hansen, called, you know, Eurafrica—the part of Europe that the Europeans possessed. So how did that movement to get rid of the French then work out? #Fethi Yeah. Look, as we said, Algeria was considered a French department. So there is a statement—I don't know by whom—anyway, it was taught in schools in France. They used to say that France is a very big country crossed by a river called the Mediterranean. Yes, of course. So you can imagine what such a statement means. So, as I said, there were many resistance movements throughout the whole period. But I would say that what led to the war of 1954, the Seven Years' War, was a succession of events. One of them was in the ’40s, when there were general elections where France tried to integrate a few autochthons into the parliament. Those elections were completely rigged so that the locals did not get access to the parliament. In parallel, there was a leader called Messali Hadj. He was the first to speak about Algerian independence, and he was leading a movement called L'Étoile Nord-Africaine, the North African Star, which gathered Algerians, Moroccans, and Tunisians. He was the first to speak about Algerian independence. So he created this movement, which in the ’40s started to get internal political attention. There were conflicts between Messali Hadj and his main team. So that event of rigging the election was an argument for his team members to tell him that negotiation with France would never work, and the only way to get independence was by armed resistance. So this group of people eventually managed to get their view through to the main decision-makers at that time, and they decided to declare the 1st of November 1954 war. #Pascal And France and the Western powers must have framed that as communist subversion. And it was all, I mean, it was the early Cold War, right? So it was looked at as probably a way for the Soviet Union to somehow get at Europe, wasn't it? #Fethi -- 4 of 14 -- Not really. At that time, it was not a question of being a socialist or communist movement. It was considered a terrorist movement. #Pascal Terrorist movement, huh. #Fethi It was started with a few attacks here and there, by the way, on the night of the 1st of November 1954. There were attacks almost across the whole country. So during this war, there were also many, many very important milestones. For example, there were the North Constantine attacks. Constantine is one of the cities in the east of Algeria. So there were the North Constantine attacks, which were very big attacks done by the National Liberation Front. By the way, the National Liberation Front was constituted after the team of Messali Hadj was taken over in the decision- making. So they created this front, and the front was basically to say, we refuse any different points of view during this phase. So you are communist, you are Islamist, you are liberal, whatsoever. During this period, we had to assemble all for one objective, which was independence. And after independence, we could again express our different views, sensitivities, political sensitivities, or schools of thought. It didn't go exactly that way after independence, but that is a different story. Anot