Star Metro - France warns Algeria against escalation of influencers showdown

Tensions between France and its former colony mounted after Algeria on Thursday sent back a suspect who had been arrested and expelled for a video posted on TikTok.

They had already heated up over the detention in Algerian of a leading Franco-Algerian writer.

France's interior minister Bruno Retailleau on Friday accused Algeria of trying to humiliate France over the writer.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot threatened restrictions to visas or development aid, telling LCI television that France would have "no option but to retaliate" if "the Algerians continue to escalate" the row.

- TikTok influencers arrested -

Former prime minister Gabriel Attal said that France should cancel a 1968 accord with Algeria that gives Algerians special rights to live and work in France because of the dispute over what he called "preachers of hate".

Four influencers supportive of Algerian authorities have been arrested in recent days over videos in which they are accused of calling for violence in France.

Algeria meanwhile has been holding French-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal on national security charges.

"Algeria is seeking to humiliate France," Interior Minister Retailleau said on a visit to the western city of Nantes, citing the case of the dual-national writer.

"Can a great country, a great people allow itself to keep in detention for the wrong reasons someone who is old and sick?"

Regarding the influencers, he said it was "out of the question to give a free pass to these individuals who spread hatred and anti-Semitism.

"I think we have reached an extremely worrying threshold with Algeria," he added. France "cannot tolerate" an "unacceptable situation".

One of those arrested is "Doualemn", a 59-year-old influencer detained in the southern city of Montpellier after a video posted on TikTok.

He was sent by plane to Algeria on Thursday, according to his lawyer, but was sent back to France the same evening as Algeria refused to let the influencer enter.

Foreign Minister Barrot said he was "astounded" that Algerian authorities "refused to take back one of their nationals".

He said France could take action on visas, development aid or "a number of other areas of cooperation".

On Thursday, Sofia Benlemmane, a Franco-Algerian woman in her fifties, was also arrested, Lyon prosecutors said.

Followed by more than 300,000 people, she is accused of spreading hate messages and threats against internet users and opponents of the Algerian authorities, as well as insulting statements about France.

- Terror-incitement charges -

Another suspect, Youcef A., 25, known as "Zazou Youssef" on TikTok, will be tried on February 24 on charges of justifying terrorism. He was arrested in Brest on January 3. He faces seven years in prison if convicted.

"Imad Tintin", 31, was taken into police custody on Saturday in Grenoble for a video, since removed, in which he called for "burning alive, killing and raping on French soil". He will be tried on March 5 for incitement to acts of terrorism.

Two other Tiktokers with the user names "Abdesslam Bazooka" and "Laksas06" are also being investigated by French authorities.

Algeria won independence from France in 1962 after a bitter seven-year war.

Tensions have surged since President Emmanuel Macron last year emphasised French support for Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Algeria backs Western Sahara pro-independence rebels.

Y.X. Gagnon--SMC