France has accused Algeria of trying to "humiliate" it by refusing entry to a deported social media influencer who allegedly incited violence. The comments by French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau are a further blow in increasingly strained relations between France and its former colony.
Algerian influencer "Doualemn" was arrested on Tuesday, 7 January in the southern French city of Montpellier, after posting a video on social media platform TikTok allegedly calling for violence against an Algerian anti-regime protester.
Doualemn was put on a plane to Algiers on Thursday afternoon, according to his lawyer Jean-Baptiste Mousset.
However, the French interior ministry said on Thursday evening that Algiers had "refused entry" to the 59-year-old, who is now in an administrative detention centre near Paris.
Three other influencers supportive of the Algerian authorities have also been arrested in recent days, over videos allegedly calling for violent acts in France.
Algerian social media influencers arrested in France for calling for violence
Paris and Algiers were already at loggerheads over the fate of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who has been in detention since mid-November in Algeria, accused of "attacking territorial integrity".
"Algeria is seeking to humiliate France," Retailleau said on Friday. "Algeria is currently holidng a great writer – Boualem Sansal – who is not only Algerian but also French. Can a great country, a great people allow itself to keep in detention for the wrong reasons someone who is old and sick?"
On the matter of the influencers, Retailleau said it was "out of the question to give a free pass to these individuals who spread hatred and anti-Semitism," adding that he believed France had reached an "extremely worrying threshold with Algeria".
Algeria summons French ambassador over accusations of interference
Influencers in the crosshairs
French authorities accuse Doualemn of "calling for the torture of an opponent of the current regime in Algeria". This led to the withdrawal of his French residence permit and his expulsion from the country, the Hérault department prefect said on Thursday.
His lawyer Mousset claims the French government "precipitated his expulsion" to prevent its examination by a judge. He denounced the expulsion as an exceptional measure used to "gag" his client, who was due to stand trial for the offence in Montpellier on 24 February.
The three other Algerians recently arrested over posting content online calling for violent acts, often against opponents of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's regime, include French-Algerian Sofia Benlemmane, who has more than 300,000 followers on TikTok and Facebook.
She was taken into custody on Thursday for "death threats and public incitement to hatred" as well as making insulting statements about France, according to police.
Diplomatic relations between France and its former colony Algeria have been strained in recent years, but worsened considerably in October when President Emmanuel Macron sided with Morocco over the long-disputed territory of Western Sahara, also claimed by Algeria.
