Algeria- A Virtual War

A Virtual War Algeria French authorities arrested at least seven Algerian ultranationalist social media influencers this month for inciting violence against Algerian dissidents and calling for terrorist attacks across France, as relations between Paris and its former colony continue to deteriorate, Politico reported. According to French officials, a handful of online influencers, some of them living in France, have built large audiences, with as many as 800,000 followers inside and outside of France. In some cases, they have targeted France-based opponents of the Algerian regime. In others, they have called for terror attacks on French soil. French officials, who have been grappling with terror attacks on Paris and other cities for a decade, often perpetrated by nationals of former colonies such as Morocco, Tunisia, or Algeria, are nervous, Politico said. The influencers are “profiteering from a context of heightened tensions between France and Algeria,” French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told L’Express, adding that the online incitement of violence is fostered by the complicated, centuries-long relationship between France and Algeria. France’s brutal rule of Algeria lasted for 132 years and ended with Algerian independence after a bloody war in 1962. More recently, tensions between the two countries have been fueled by migration issues and French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent backing of Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed region of Western Sahara, the Associated Press reported. Algeria has long supported independence for that region and afterward withdrew its ambassador from Paris. Further straining relations is Algeria’s arrest of French-Algerian writer and Algerian regime critic Boualem Sansal in November. Algeria detained Sansal on national security charges, prompting Macron to accuse Algiers of “dishonoring itself.” France, meanwhile, has not accused Algeria of supporting these influencers. None of the posts have yet resulted in violence. France is home to more than two million Algerian immigrants and descendants of immigrants, according to the French national statistics institute Insee. Share this story