Paris accuses Algeria of trying to humiliate France by refusing to admit a deported influencer

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PARIS (AP) — French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Friday accused Algeria of “trying to humiliate France” after the North African country refused to admit one of its nationals who was being deported.

The influencer was arrested in the city of Montpellier on Sunday on charges of inciting violence in videos he posted on social media. French immigration officials put him on a flight to Algiers Thursday, but Algeria refused to admit him, saying he was banned from entering its territory. He was finally sent back to France that evening, the French interior ministry said.

Police in France have in recent days arrested four Algerian nationals described by authorities as social media influencers accused of posting videos inciting violence, against a backdrop of soured relations.

“I want to express my astonishment,” Retailleau said Friday. “I think we’ve reached an extremely worrying threshold with Algeria. It’s clear that Algeria is trying to humiliate France.”

The two countries have a turbulent relationship: Algeria, once a French colony, shook off rule from Paris in 1962 after a brutal war.

Two other Algerian influencers were arrested last week in the Alpine city of Grenoble and the western port city of Brest, while a female TikTok influencer was taken into police custody in the city of Lyon on Thursday. She is accused of making “death threats” against opponents of the government in Algiers.

“There’s absolutely no question of giving free rein to the hatred of these individuals who are spreading antisemitism, murder etc.,” Retailleau said. “Social networks are not a lawless zone.”

Retailleau also sharply criticized the detention since November of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal in Algeria, who is an outspoken critic of the Algerian government. Retailleau said Sansal is “old and ill” and accused Algiers of keeping him in prison “for the wrong reasons."

A shift last July in France’s decades-old position on the disputed Western Sahara region of northern Africa angered Algeria and prompted the withdrawal of its ambassador in Paris.