Algeria army leaders present at Macron’s meeting with Tebboune

ALGIERS - Televisions’ coverage showed the handshake of Algerian army chief of staff, General Said Chengriha with French President Emmanuel Macron during the reception at Algiers airport proved that the North African country is still under the military’s control.

Media sources who attended the reception ceremony of the French President at the airport confirmed that Macron did not give him the usual military salute on these occasions, and this is a clear indication that something happened or might happen.

The picture passed quickly, like other pictures that marred the visit, and it may reduce an implicit, hidden, extended and wounded conflict in the memory of an entire nation that is intended to calm down and turn its pages between a colonizer and a colonized, between a generation represented by Chengriha, first suffocated and injured in his heart, soul and body, and does not want to forgot, and another generation Macron wants to reduce to a few hypothetical young people chosen with utmost care so as not to embarrass the future of the two countries, which the French President sees in the eyes of the novelist Kamal Daoud and some startup owners.

Even if the various analyses, reports and media coverage tried to give an inspiring face to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in this picture and attributed to him great roles as an important player and a major pole, his appearance during the whole visit was pale and confused as if he were outside the coverage.

Macron recently poured out media statements against the Algerian military elite, based on an angry silence from the latter, which led to obstacles that reduced dialogue between Algeria and France.

At that time, the Algerian presidency deliberately corrected and justified and put Macron in his place without understanding the reasons and backgrounds that made him speak out of a pent-up passion or raise and plead a faint voice for someone in the government that was bored or saw that it was stuck and tied and unable to break free from the real fist of the regime.

Macron's program was so rich that it has been altered during his visit, including the meeting between the leaders of the security affairs of the two countries under the eyes of the two presidents at a lunch table, as shown in the footage of the official Algerian television. The reports said that the meeting was the first of its kind since Algeria's independence, which is held at this level in public as such meetings usually take place away from all the gazing eyes.

But this time the data, contexts, circumstances and even the methods and in security dealings have changed, which was clear from this meeting, especially from the Algerian side, where the cover of shadows and halos of hiding Algerian intelligence men from the picture was lifted. And if the report did not mention the name of the leaders of the Algerian apparatus, but rather mentioned the description for unknown reasons, even though everyone knew them by name and surname, and the name of the French director of external security was also not mentioned.

No one knows how this meeting was programmed into overtime. Is it the interests of the presidency to give the impression to the guest that Tebboune is in control of the both decisions and governance, and he is the one who summoned the leaders? It is evident from the photo that the surprise of the meeting appears in the faces of the French officials more than in the Algerian counterparts’.

Returning to the picture that was transmitted by Algerian television in less than a minute, it was quick and lightning. Many things can be observed. With the exception of Major General Abdelghani Rachedi, the head of the general direction of the Documentation and External Security, General M’henna Djebar from the Algerian side, and Bernard Emie, France's Foreign Intelligence Agency, everyone was putting their hands on the table, a situation that could be interpreted as an equal confrontation of power. The sharp look of General Chengriha is more noticeable, while General Rachedi and Majdoub smile lightly, while it fades with General Djebar.

And if the analyses and opinions are correct, the topic of those who are said to be wanted opponents of Algerian justice could be at the center of the discussion, and the presence of the person in charge of this file, General Djebar, Director of Anti-Sabotage, is only a glimpse of what this meeting could lead to in the future.

It is also remarkable in the picture that there are no documents, papers, documents or pens except for an agenda placed to the right of the French director of external security, which makes us think that that the meeting was likely hastily programmed and an indication of an attempt to deliver a strong message from President Tebboune to his French counterpart that he is an actual president capable of ruling the Algerian regime, which Macron described as stuck in the hands of the military, and that it is truly in harmony and fully compatible with the most important nerve of the Algerian army: the intelligence and staff.

It is most likely that Macron’s visit will not erase what France has done for more than 100 years, and it cannot scatter the future with the blood of our martyrs until it acknowledges what it has done, which Macron rejects and will remain stuck in it no matter how intensified and multiplied the visits are at the gates of free Algeria.