A meeting between French Armed Forces Minister Alice Rufo and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune marked the most concrete step yet in restoring ties severed by a dispute over Western Sahara and several high-profile detention cases.
France and Algeria have agreed to deepen cooperation on security, defence, and migration, signalling a shift in a bilateral relationship that collapsed roughly two years ago and had grown into the worst rupture between the two countries since Algerian independence in 1962.
The agreement came after a two-hour meeting in Algiers between President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Alice Rufo, France’s minister delegate for the armed forces. Rufo arrived carrying a letter from President Emmanuel Macron, and the visit was accompanied by a symbolic gesture: France’s ambassador to Algeria, Stéphane Romatet, returned to his post after having been recalled at the peak of the crisis roughly a year earlier.
The two sides agreed to work toward strengthening cooperation in security and defence, and to intensify coordination on migration and judicial matters, particularly around drug trafficking.
How the Dispute Began
The rupture started in July 2024, when Macron sent a letter to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI declaring that France regarded Moroccan sovereignty as the basis for resolving the longstanding dispute over Western Sahara. The move ended decades of studied French neutrality on the issue and was described by one Atlantic Council analyst at the time as a major diplomatic victory for Rabat. Algeria responded almost immediately, withdrawing its ambassador from Paris and cancelling a planned state visit by Tebboune to France.
Western Sahara sits at the center of one of Africa’s longest-running territorial disputes. The dispute, which dates to 1975, pits Morocco — which regards Western Sahara as its own territory — against the Polisario Front, an independence movement backed by Algeria. The territory was formerly a Spanish colony; Spain, the former colonial power in Western Sahara, said in 2022 it backs Morocco’s autonomy plan. The United States, Israel, and a number of Arab states had already taken the same position. France’s endorsement was nonetheless significant given its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and its historical role as the colonial power over both Morocco and Algeria.
Algeria is the main foreign backer of the Polisario Front, and France’s support for Morocco’s position is central to Algerian foreign policy, which has been deeply invested in the dispute for decades. Algiers has long recognised the Polisario’s self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and backed a UN referendum process that stalled before it could take place.
A Crisis That Deepened
The ambassador recall was just the opening move in what became an escalating sequence of incidents. In April 2024, French authorities alleged that an Algerian consular official was linked to the abduction of an Algerian dissident living in France. Algeria denied the accusation and expelled twelve French embassy employees in retaliation. France subsequently suspended a bilateral visa agreement for Algerian diplomats.
The case of Boualem Sansal became another flashpoint. Sansal, who holds both French and Algerian citizenship, was arrested in November 2024 at Algiers airport upon his arrival from France. He was sentenced in March to five years in prison for “undermining Algeria’s territorial integrity,” stemming from comments he had made to a French media outlet in which he claimed that France had unjustly transferred Moroccan territory to Algeria during the colonial period. Sansal, 81 and suffering from cancer, was eventually pardoned by Tebboune in November 2025 at the request of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. His case drew a resolution from the European Parliament, widespread condemnation from press freedom groups, and repeated personal appeals from Macron.
The detention of Christophe Gleizes added further strain. Gleizes, a contributor to the French publications So Foot and Society, was arrested in May 2024 while reporting in Tizi Ouzou on Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie, one of Algeria’s most decorated football clubs. The charges alleging terrorism and propaganda stem from 2015 and 2017, when Gleizes had been in contact with a Tizi Ouzou football figure prominent in the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK) — a group that Algeria designated a terrorist organisation in 2021. An Algerian appeals court confirmed a seven-year prison sentence against Gleizes in December 2025. Press freedom organisations including Reporters Without Borders have condemned the conviction, noting that Gleizes is currently the only French journalist imprisoned abroad.
His mother, Sylvie Godard, wrote a letter to Tebboune asking him to pardon her son, and Gleizes subsequently withdrew his appeal with the country’s highest court in hopes of receiving a presidential pardon.
Signs of a Thaw
The path toward the Rufo meeting did not begin with her visit. French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez had visited Algiers in February to restart security cooperation, marking the first sign of a diplomatic thaw. That visit helped resume consular authorisations that had dropped to zero at the height of the crisis.
Following the Rufo meeting, France confirmed that Gleizes had received his first consular visit since his detention began. Rufo also told the French National Assembly that Paris intended to secure his return to France as quickly as possible. French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin announced plans to travel to Algiers the following week to work on judicial cooperation, with Gleizes described as a major focus of the trip. Interior Minister Nuñez said Algeria’s interior minister was expected to visit Paris in the coming days, which he called a very positive signal.
The Stakes
The reconciliation effort reflects practical pressures on both sides. Algeria is a significant natural gas supplier to Europe, a role that grew in strategic importance after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 disrupted European energy markets. Migration flows across the central Mediterranean — a persistent source of political tension in France — require cooperation with North African governments, including Algeria. Drug trafficking, referenced specifically in the talks, is a growing concern in France, with large quantities of cannabis and harder narcotics moving through networks that span Algeria and the Mediterranean.
For Algeria, the diplomatic cost of an extended freeze with its largest trading partner in the European Union carries its own economic weight, even as Algiers has positioned itself as a sovereign actor unwilling to absorb pressure from Paris without consequence.
The Rufo visit does not resolve the underlying Western Sahara dispute, and France has not reversed its recognition of Moroccan sovereignty — the original trigger for the crisis. What both governments appear to have concluded is that the practical costs of paralysis outweigh the symbolic costs of resuming cooperation while the core disagreement remains unresolved.
Talks between French and Algerian officials are ongoing. The fate of Christophe Gleizes remains the most immediate unresolved issue for Paris.