Was it an intentional statement or a clumsy communication? By railing against the “crazy people” who “want to fall out with Algeria,” Emmanuel Macron set the subject, if only for a moment, of the debate in the accelerating presidential campaign. During a visit to a hospital in Ariège on April 27, the French president expressed his frustration, in front of an Algerian doctor, about the “mess” caused by the slow-moving bureaucracy governing the work of medical practitioners with degrees from outside the European Union. “It drives me crazy! That’s the folly of the French system,” he exclaimed.
More than a third of these foreign doctors practicing in France are graduates of Algerian medical schools. Macron, who praised “these women and men who serve our country,” used their example to criticize supporters of a confrontational diplomatic relationship with Algeria. “It is very important, in the period ahead, not to accept a reductionist or caricatured mindset,” argued the president, adding that it was “important to be able to cooperate with countries through demanding dialogue, defending our interests – which we do – but while respecting everyone.”
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