The question of renegotiating an agreement signed in 1968 between France and Algeria is being raised as part of the immigration bill to be examined on Monday, December 11th, by the French National Assembly. The agreement grants major privileges to Algerians in France in terms of employment, movement, and residence. The Right is in favour of renegotiating the agreement, but the government is hesitating.
In 1968, six years after Algeria’s independence, France, under General de Gaulle, signed an agreement with the Algerian government granting numerous privileges to Algerian nationals wishing to travel to France, work there, or settle there.
In practice, the 1968 agreement, governed by international law, exempts Algerians from ordinary French immigration law and allows them to benefit from special privileges. The agreement makes it easier for Algerians to enter France. They benefit from legal entry conditions and therefore do not need long-stay visas. It enables them to obtain a residence permit, valid for 10 years, more quickly than nationals of other countries. Their conditions of access to family reunification are also more favourable: family members admitted to reside in France receive a residence permit for the same duration as the person they are joining. Algerian nationals can also apply for a 10-year residence certificate after just 3 years of residence, compared to 5 years under ordinary law.
These specific conditions can be explained by the context in which the agreement was signed—the aftermath of the Algerian war—and by the French government’s concern at the time to ease tensions with the fledgling Algerian state, while maintaining close ties with a territory that once did not have the status of a colony, but was an integral part of France. In the 1970s, the agreement facilitated the large and regular arrival of Algerian workers and their families on French soil. Even today, Algerians represent the largest contingent of foreigners in France.
At the time of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, there had already been talk of renegotiating the agreement in order to control the influx of Algerian immigrants. Discussions with Algiers were unsuccessful, as the Algerian government refused to lose its privileges. In all, the agreement has been revised three times (1985, 1994, and 2001), but only marginally and without fundamentally challenging its principles.
Les Républicains MPs have been arguing for months that the agreement should be terminated. For LR MP Michèle Tabarot, the revision of this agreement is an “essential corollary” of the immigration bill, insofar as it grants an “almost unlimited right to immigration” for Algerians to France. On December 7th, the LR deputies put the abolition of the 1968 agreement on the agenda of their parliamentary niche—i.e., the one day per ordinary session of the Assembly during which a party can set the agenda and submit bills of its choice for debate.
Emmanuel Macron’s former prime minister, Edouard Philippe, supports this move. He said in June: “Maintaining such an arrangement today with a country with which we have complicated relations no longer seems justified to me.” Philippe, who now heads a micro-party, Horizons, integrated into the presidential majority, is taking a position that does not please Macron’s camp.
The government deemed the resolution an unwelcome encroachment by MPs on foreign policy, usually considered in France to be the privileged domain of the president. “I didn’t know that France’s foreign policy was defined in Parliament,” said Emmanuel Macron with annoyance, according to comments reported by BFMTV and confirmed by Le Figaro. The president’s words were interpreted as a call to order to any of his MPs who might have been tempted to vote in favour of the resolution proposed by LR.
The proposed law put forward by the LR parliamentary group was ultimately rejected by 151 votes to 114. The addition of votes from LR, RN, and Horizons was not enough to win support. As a result, Algeria’s advantageous position remains for the time being. Several measures in the immigration bill currently under discussion will not apply to Algerians, who still benefit from an exemption. The government is anxious not to antagonise Algiers to obtain cooperation on the issue of consular passes which allow the deportation of delinquent Algerian nationals. For the future, the executive and Macron’s Renaissance party nevertheless consider that a discussion on the 1968 agreement remains possible. The negotiation of a new rider “is on the agenda,” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said on Wednesday before the examination of the resolution presented by the LR MPs. It is not yet known in what direction the government intends to work on this tense issue.
