France expels 12 Algerian officials as row over alleged kidnapping escalates

France has expelled 12 Algerian consular and diplomatic officials and recalled its ambassador in Algiers, the French presidency said on Tuesday, in a retaliatory measure as a spat escalates between the two countries.

“The Algerian authorities are responsible for the sudden degradation of our bilateral relations,” President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
Algiers has been protesting against France’s detention of an Algerian consular agent suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of an Algerian opposition activist. France later said Algeria had expelled 12 of its diplomatic staff.

France’s relations with its former colony have long been complicated, but took a turn for the worse last year when Macron supported Morocco’s position over that of Algeria over the disputed Western Sahara region.

Last week the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, had said that ties between the two countries were returning to normal.

The activist and influencer Amir Boukhors is a critic of the Algerian president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and has more than 1 million subscribers on TikTok, where he posts as Amir DZ.

He has lived in France since 2016 and was granted political asylum in 2023. Algeria has issued nine international arrest warrants against him on accusations of fraud and terrorism, but France refuses to extradite him.

In April 2024, Boukhors was snatched outside his home in Val-de-Marne, south of Paris, telling France 2 television in a later interview that he was handcuffed and bundled into a car by four men wearing police armbands. He claimed he was drugged and held in a “container” for more than 24 hours before being released at 3am. “I fell into a trap,” he said.

Three men were arrested and put under investigation on Friday for the “kidnap, holding and arbitrary detention” of Boukhors. France’s national anti-terrorist prosecutor confirmed that one of the men arrested worked for the Algerian consulate at Créteil, south-east of Paris.

Algeria has denied the official’s involvement in the kidnapping.

In a separate source of tension between the countries, Macron has also called on Algeria to release Boualem Sansal, a 75-year-old writer sentenced to five years in prison for “undermining the integrity” of the country.