* French President Nicolas Sarkozy, born when the Algerian revolution was all of a couple of months old, arrives in Algiers today for a three day visit. As he did recently in China, Sarkozy is traveling with an entourage of government officials, business leaders, and celebrities. Though we're told to expect "only" $5 billion or so in new contracts (in China the deals were worth some $30 billion), it clearly helps to show that these visits have an economic payoff.
It's on the political and historical side that the French-Algerian relationship is often troubled. It's hard to "normalize" relations when several million citizens and residents of France come from the descendants (les beurs) of Algerian economic migrants, repatriated European settlers or "pieds noirs," and exiled "harkis" or Algerian fighters for France. For many, relations between the two countries will always be infused with emotion.
Sarkozy - who has already catapulted "beurettes" Rachida Dati and Fadela Amara into his cabinet - travels with a delegation which includes popular figures from the large French North African community. He has been successful in drawing into his circle quite a diverse collection of second and third generation beurs, but in the French banlieues - as well as in Algeria - considerable skepticism remains. Even without going as far as the Algerian Minister for "Moujahidin Affairs" (veterans of the revolution), whose anti-semitic remarks on the eve of the visit vexed a number of French and Algerian commentators, Algerians on both sides of the Mediterranean remember Sarkozy's thinly veiled pandering to the far right of Jean Marie Le Pen when he called mostly-beur youth rampaging in the streets "scum," to be cleaned out with a "pressure hose."
Along with "deliverables" of industrial and trade contracts, President Sarkozy will use the visit to drum up support for his "Mediterranean Union" proposal, where he hopes to launch a 21-nation grouping in France next June. Cross-Mediterranean ties, in one form or another, have been a feature of NATO (the Mediterranean Dialogue) and the European Union (the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership) for years. Sarkozy's proposal has raised hackles in Turkey, which wants the Full Monty of EU membership, and suspects Sarkozy's grouping as a "consolation prize" for Turkey's EU bid, which he opposes.
France is always useful in Algeria as a scapegoat, and whenever the internal situation deteriorates, it has been a time-honored Algerian tradition to blame France. France remains important to Algeria, in terms of trade, emigration, remittances, and (though they are loath to admit it) culture. But France is no longer the only game in town. Much of Algeria's building boom of recent years has been accomplished with Chinese labor (!), and the United States has been paying much politico-military attention to Algeria, especially since September 11, 2001.
But Sarkozy's inclusion of people of Algerian descent in his government and in his delegation is an astute move. Not only do they represent enormous human potential, but they can be a bridge to relations with the mother country. Football star Zinedine Zidane's visit to Algeria last year probably did more for bilateral relations than any number of political speeches.
Improving relations with petrochemical-rich Algeria - especially in light of increasing European dependence on Russian natural gas - is a wise strategic move. But just like Sarkozy's recent visit to China, where his outspoken minister for human rights was left off the delegation, the French President is not likely to dwell on Algeria's problematic relationship with democracy. Business is business, as the French say.
* (Photo source "Liberte" Algiers; "Dilem" is Algeria's legendary political cartoonist)