She reminded him of his previous decisions against her in instructions to his Prime Minister:
father-in-law
The former socialist candidate for the French presidential elections, Ségolène Royal, criticized French President Emmanuel Macron’s late attempt to ease the tense atmosphere with Algeria, and held him responsible for the unprecedented deterioration in bilateral relations.
Royal said in a “tweet” on her account on the “X” platform, Monday, April 27, 2026, commenting on statements by the French President on the same day: “Emmanuel Macron launches an attack on the lunatics who seek to harm relations with Algeria, after he discovered thousands of workers in the Algerian health sector.”
The former Minister of the Environment added, surprised by the behavior of the French President, saying: “But he was the one who complicated bilateral relations! In a letter dated May 6, 2025, to former Prime Minister François Bayrou and former Minister of the Interior Bruno Rotayo, which resulted in serious consequences for workers in the health sector and companies.”
The president of the “France-Algeria Association” attached her tweet to a paragraph from a newspaper article talking about the directives given by Emmanuel Macron to his former Prime Minister, in which it stated, “Among the measures mentioned in the letter addressed to François Bayrou, the head of state specifically calls for the “official” suspension of the 2013 agreement with Algeria “on visa exemption for holders of official and diplomatic passports.”
That clip added, “This measure has been frozen until now, following the expulsion of diplomats from both sides of the Mediterranean. Emmanuel Macron also wants to refuse to grant short-stay visas to holders of official and diplomatic passports,” and that “the European Union adopt this firm position.”
Ségolène Royal’s tweet expresses her state of frustration, as she believes that bilateral relations will not regain their lost vitality, after the strenuous efforts she made during her visit to Algeria at the end of last January, where her pressure on the government of Sebastien Lecornu succeeded in pushing the French Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nunillaz, to visit Algeria after he initially tried to set preconditions.
This visit succeeded in dismantling a small number of mines that were poisoning bilateral relations, especially those related to the immigration file. However, the impact of this remained limited, as the Algeria-Paris axis is still suffering from coldness, despite the frequent visits between the two countries, the most recent of which was the visit of a delegation from the French Foundations Movement “MEDAF”, headed by Patrick Martin, to Algeria, a visit that passed in an unusual calm and far from media attention.
The secrets and backgrounds of the French President’s awakening regarding dealing with the worsening political and diplomatic crisis with Algeria have not become clear, but his statement, which came at the conclusion of the visit of the “Medaf” delegation to Algeria, coincided with the publication of press articles by media outlets affiliated with the French extreme right, calling on the French authorities to cut off bridges of communication with Algeria, such as the newspapers “Le Figaro” and “Le Journal du Dimanche,” due to the extremism of the party. The Algerian side responded to the concerns of the French side, as they claimed.
