Algeria summons French envoy over consular staff, visa row

Algeria on Wednesday summoned the French ambassador after the embassy announced on Tuesday it would cut its staff by a third by September, citing Algiers' refusal to grant visas to new consular employees.

In a statement, seen by the Eastleigh Voice, Algeria's Foreign Ministry called the embassy's announcement "unacceptable" and accused the French ambassador of breaking diplomatic protocol, including the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, by directly blaming Algiers for the dispute.

"The chargé d'affaires of the Embassy of the French Republic in Algiers was summoned on August 27, 2025, to the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Director General of Protocol," the statement, issued in French, roughly translates.

"He was informed that this press release was unacceptable in that it contained a tendentious presentation of the facts and addressed itself directly to Algerian public opinion to accuse it of the alleged exclusive and full responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the non-accreditation of French diplomatic and consular agents in Algeria."

Similarly, Algeria argued that France itself had refused to accredit Algerian diplomats and consular staff for more than two years, leaving three Consuls General, six Consuls, and dozens of other agents unable to take up their posts in France.

"The non-accreditation of French diplomatic and consular agents in Algeria came well after a similar French decision and after the exhaustion, at the initiative of the Algerian party, of all possibilities for resolving this dispute to the satisfaction of both countries," the Ministry said.

"Similarly, forty-six Algerian diplomatic and consular agents have been unable to return to their places of assignment in France due to the silence observed by the French side regarding their accreditation requests."

According to Algeria, the French stance has disrupted services for Algerian nationals in France and undermined the consular protection owed to them. The ministry added that its own decision not to accredit French staff was simply applying the principle of reciprocity.

"It was strongly emphasised to the French diplomat that he himself is aware that the visa issue is not exclusively linked to the question of accreditations and that it is common knowledge that his government has made this issue a central lever in the power struggle it wants to impose on Algeria," the Ministry said.

Algeria also accused France of using visas as a form of pressure, saying Paris was turning travel documents into a weapon in a wider political dispute.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs observes that visa blackmail continues on the part of the French government. The first phase of this blackmail ended with Algeria's denunciation of the 2013 Algerian-French Agreement on reciprocal visa exemption for holders of diplomatic and service passports," Algeria said.

"Today, the French authorities are opening a second phase concerning ordinary passports, which they intend to manage through blackmail, bargaining, and intimidation."

Relations between Algiers and Paris have sharply deteriorated in recent months. Earlier this year, both countries expelled a dozen of each other's diplomats in a tit-for-tat row, while France tightened visa rules for Algerian officials.

Algeria responded by scrapping a long-standing visa exemption deal and accused Paris of using travel documents as political pressure, deepening a rift already strained by disagreements over regional issues.

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