Top French diplomat visits Algeria to mend relations

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian held talks in Algeria on Wednesday in a bid to heal the latest rift between the North African country and its former colonial ruler.

Le Drian’s trip, kept secret until the last minute, is a “working visit, to evaluate and relaunch the relationship” and he is set to meet

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a French Foreign Ministry source said on condition of anonymity.

Algeria’s APS state news outlet confirmed that the French diplomat had met his Algerian counterpart Ramtane Lamamra during “a working visit and evaluation of bilateral relations.”

Relations between Algiers and Paris have been strained for much of the six decades since the former

French colony won its independence after a 130-year occupation.

President Emmanuel Macron has gone further than his predecessors in owning up to French abuses during the colonial era. But ties collapsed in October after Macron accused Algeria’s “political-military system” of rewriting history and fomenting “hatred toward France.”

In remarks to descendants of independence fighters, reported by

Le Monde, Macron also questioned whether Algeria had existed as a nation before the French invasion in the 1800s.

Coming a month after Paris decided to sharply reduce visa quotas for citizens of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, those comments sparked a fierce reaction from Algeria.

The country withdrew its ambassador and banned French military planes from its airspace, which they regularly use to carry out operations against jihadist groups in West Africa and the Sahel region.

The comments also prompted Tebboune to boycott a major November summit in Paris on Algeria’s war-torn neighbor Libya.

The dispute prompted a rare expression of contrition from the French presidency, which said it “regretted” the misunderstandings caused by the remarks.