Algeria

The scientific conference “Challenges and Threats to the Algerian State and Society: History and Modernity”, held recently at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOS), brought together specialists representing academic institutions and leading universities in Russia. The agenda included a wide range of topics from Algeria’s energy strategy and its foreign policy to issues of cultural and national identification of society and cooperation between Moscow and Algeria.

On September 2018 French President Macron admitted that France had committed war crimes in the Algerian War for Independence that lasted from 1954 to 1962. He acknowledged, as just a single example, the torture of FLN member, Maurice Audin, a communist, who, after being tortured was executed by French military forces, at the age of 25.  Married with three children, he, like many others, disappeared during the Battle of Algiers. A few months earlier, as a presidential candidate, Macron described colonialism as a crime against humanity, but not much later ruled out any chance of reparations…

“Moscow-Algeria: closer than ever before,” “Algerian-Russian Axis: New Prospects for Cooperation,” “Summit of Friends.” These and similar headlines in Algerian media reflect the reaction to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s recent state visit to Russia. During the visit, the Russian Federation and the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria signed an in-depth strategic partnership declaration, as well as eight separate agreements. These bilateral ties between the two nations are universally referred to be “privileged” by experts. They began in the 1950s, when Algerians were fighting for independence from France’s colonial rule, and Moscow provided…