Algeria Orders 12 French Embassy Employees to Leave the Country Within 48 Hours
ALGIERS – Algeria has made a sovereign decision to declare 12 employees of the French Embassy and its consular representations in Algeria—affiliated with departments under the French Ministry of the Interior—persona non grata. Accordingly, they have been ordered to leave the country within 48 hours, according to a statement released Monday by the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The source explained that this decision “comes in response to the public, theatrical, and defamatory arrest carried out on April 8, 2025, by agencies under the French Ministry of the Interior, targeting a consular employee of a sovereign state accredited in France.” The source added that “this disgraceful act—intended by the French Minister of the Interior as an affront to Algeria—was executed in blatant disregard for the consular status of the employee, with no respect for diplomatic norms and conventions, and in clear violation of the relevant agreements and treaties.”
Algeria emphasized that “this blatant encroachment on its sovereignty is merely a reflection of the ongoing negative and disgraceful stance of the French Minister of the Interior toward Algeria.”
“This minister, known for employing disgraceful tactics for purely personal motives, clearly lacks even the most basic sense of political judgment. The degrading arrest of a consular employee—protected by the immunities and privileges tied to his official status—and his shameful treatment as though he were a thief, squarely places full responsibility on the aforementioned minister for the course that Algerian-French relations may now take. This incident comes at a time when relations were beginning to ease, following a phone call between the two heads of state and the subsequent visit of the French Foreign Minister to Algeria,” the statement said.
In this regard, Algeria affirms that “any further action by the French Minister of the Interior that infringes upon its sovereignty will be met with a firm and appropriate response, based on the principle of reciprocity.”
