Relations between France and its former colony Algeria are being tested by another diplomatic crisis, 63 years after Algeria gained its independence. The crisis, stemming from the immigrant agreement signed between France and Algeria in 1968, is deeply affecting France’s domestic politics while also causing France’s perspective toward its former colony to be questioned. Meanwhile, the main catalyst of this crisis, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, is being accused by his opponents of dragging the country into a meaningless crisis in order to gain the support of “far-right” anti-immigrant groups in France.
What Is the 1968 Agreement?
The 1968 Agreement, officially titled “Agreement on the Movement, Employment, and Residence of Algerian Citizens and Their Families within France,” allows Algerians to enter French territory under a special status. Thanks to this agreement, Algerians can easily settle in the country, find jobs, and quickly bring their families from their homeland to France (or send money they earn in France back to them).
Algerian labor had been utilized by the French many times during the colonial period. For example, a very high number of Algerian workers were used in the reconstruction of Paris after World War II. This agreement, signed 6 years after Algeria gained its independence in 1962, was a way for the French to preserve cheap labor, while for Algerians it was a way to send people who could not find jobs in their country’s internal economic conditions, or who could not make ends meet with their current jobs, to a better future.
France’s former Prime Minister Michel Barnier, while criticizing the agreement, pointed out that citizens of no other country have such advantages. While increasing immigration was fueling unrest in France, this agreement was only adding salt to the wound. Interior Minister Retailleau initially requested that the agreement merely be reviewed, but as problems grew regarding the inability to deport Algerians who committed crimes in France, he began to advocate for the direct abolition of the agreement. Algerian authorities were stubbornly refusing to take back their citizens who committed crimes after settling in France using this agreement, and were pushing them back to France.
According to Retailleau’s claim, the Ministry of Interior wanted to send back about 60 Algerian citizens to Algeria for threatening public security, but Algerian authorities stubbornly rejected this request on the grounds that it was “against human rights.” The last straw was the Islamist terrorist attack that took place in France on February 22, 2025. The perpetrator of the terrorist attack, an Algerian citizen, had been monitored by French Intelligence for a long time. Although numerous deportation orders had been issued for him, Algerian authorities had stubbornly refused to accept their citizen back into the country, and eventually this citizen carried out a bloody act.
All these events increased the negative public opinion about the agreement while deepening the diplomatic crisis.
Domestic Political Dynamics: Macron Caught Between Nationalist Opposition and Leftist Opposition
When the anti-immigrant and nationalist RN (Rassemblement National) emerged as the top party in the 2024 European Parliament elections in France, Macron took a dangerous gamble by calling for early elections. Although RN won the popular vote in these elections, in the second round of the elections, France’s New Popular Front and Macron’s party mutually withdrew their candidates from areas where they came in 3rd, thus managing to limit the parliamentary representation of the nationalists who came out first in terms of vote share, pushing them to 3rd place. However, the New Popular Front was soon betrayed.
Macron, without even giving the Front, which came in 1st in the number of deputies, a chance to form a government, tasked Michel Barnier, a center-right figure, with forming the new government. Barnier was able to form the government with the silent approval of RN, thanks to his strict stance on immigration. The Barnier government fell due to disagreements over the 2025 budget before the end of 2024. However, another center-right figure, François Bayrou, along with Justice Minister Darmanin and Interior Minister Retailleau, continues to keep the issue of immigration on the agenda.
While French Interior Minister Retailleau argued that the 1968 Agreement needed to be revised, the nationalist wing led by Le Pen found this insufficient and advocated that the agreement should be canceled altogether if necessary. However, Retailleau soon came to the same position as Le Pen and her supporters. The reason for this is, as explained at the beginning of the article, the inability to deport Algerians who come to France, commit crimes, become radicalized, and generally endanger French citizens.
Especially after the February 22, 2025 fiasco, Retailleau declared that Algeria’s only goal is now to “humiliate France” and that France should unilaterally terminate the agreement. The right-wing opposition, which supports the government’s increasingly aggressive stance towards Algeria, claims that Algeria is throwing its “garbage” at France by abusing this agreement. French Prime Minister Bayrou agreed with the idea that this agreement, which provides terrible advantages to Algeria, is being abused, and stated that the terms of the agreement should be reviewed.
The left-wing opposition in France accuses the government’s stance of being “Islamophobic” and “Racist.” At the same time, according to this group, the current government is deliberately escalating this crisis to maintain the support of the “far right” in order to stay in power. The right-wing opposition, despite supporting the policies of the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister, accuses President Macron of not providing enough support to the government. The right-wing opposition, thinking that Macron is particularly afraid of the reaction of Algerians in France, demands that the Interior Minister take a more aggressive stance regardless of Macron.
On March 15, 2025, Retailleau signaled that if France were to make concessions to Algeria, he would resign and plunge the government into a new crisis. Retired French diplomat Gérard Araud claimed that the current crisis embarrassed him as a diplomat, that Retailleau was using France-Algeria relations for his own political career, and disregarding France’s interests. Retailleau himself continues to say that his duty is to ensure the safety of French citizens and that he will clearly not back down.
Algeria’s Response: Indifference Born from Third World Nationalism
Algerian authorities are responding to the current crisis only with typical Third World nationalist reflexes. According to the Algerian side, the French government’s rhetoric “bears traces of colonialism, French authorities do not recognize Algeria as an equal state.” Again, according to Algerian authorities, the French government has been influenced by “far-right conspiracy theories” and has endangered the “mutually beneficial” 1968 Agreement by making moves aimed at domestic politics.
As a result of Third World nationalism, Algerians remain insensitive to the average French person’s discomfort with immigration. Algerians, who proudly tell how they were used as cheap labor by the French with phrases like “We rebuilt their country anyway,” see the effects of this cheap labor, such as increasing crime rates, either as an exaggeration or, depending on their ideological line, as “punishment for what they did to us.”
Of course, at the end of the day, this paves the way for the average French person to see this immigrant mass not as workers who want to establish a better life, but as an invading army hostile to the French and their way of life.
Although French President Macron intervened to try to soften the crisis, this attempt did not work well; in April 2025, both countries began to expel each other’s diplomats from their countries.
Looking at the current crisis from a broad perspective, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the 1968 Agreement is completely against France’s interests. Algerian youth, who cannot establish a decent life in their country due to Algeria’s internal problems, can enter France freely. These people, who become radicalized after settling in a foreign country, get involved in crime in a short time. Algeria’s refusal to take these people back justifiably causes outrage in French public opinion. Algeria, which pushes its “garbage” to France, certainly does not want to abandon this advantageous agreement. Algeria’s biggest hope is that the large Algerian population in France, surely with the support of left-wing parties, will hold protests that will force the French government to back down. At the same time, they hope that the labor shortage that will emerge in France if Algerians are massively deported will also deter the French from making radical decisions.
Looking at the French side, apart from Retailleau’s unwillingness to back down, the masses tired of the economic and social damage caused by immigrants in France will definitely not accept making concessions to Algeria. Macron, who was once the bright face of European liberals, is now forced to please the nationalist opposition on the issue of immigration in order to maintain his power. In a scenario where he fails to do this, an RN government seems inevitable.
Constitutional Council Obstacle in Solving the Immigration Crisis and the Growing Nationalist Wave
The biggest problem for the Bayrou Government in the current crisis is the Constitutional Council. For example, in January 2024, many articles of the new immigration law that was intended to restrict non-European immigration to France were annulled by the Constitutional Council, which claimed that these articles were contrary to “Universal Human Rights and the French Constitution.” Even if Retailleau’s dream comes true and France manages to withdraw from the 1968 Immigration Agreement, will the Council subsequently allow mass deportation operations? This does not seem very likely.
Here, a serious difference of opinion between the demands of society and the country’s judicial body becomes clear. If the French government cannot meet the people’s security demands due to their loyalty to “the rule of law” and “separation of powers,” the people will naturally rally behind the more radical nationalist opposition expected to violate such norms. Therefore, the current crisis should not be viewed merely as a France-Algeria crisis. What really fuels this diplomatic crisis is the current immigration crisis and the apathetic stance that immigrating countries take towards recipient countries, stemming from Third World reflexes.
Politicians and bureaucrats may accept that members of crime gangs that emerge as a result of immigration cannot be removed from the country on the grounds that it would be a “human rights violation.” However, for citizens directly affected by the immigration crisis, this “judicial tutelage” will only make strong leaders who will “do what is necessary” by disregarding separation of powers more attractive. This will create a major risk not only for France’s democracy, but for all of Europe’s.
