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Algeria Gate – Editorial by Amar Belani: After five full minutes of complaining that Algeria no longer buys French products (except medicines), a CNEWS commentator ended his lament with a line as grotesque as it is revealing: “Algerians boycott France, but Algerian nationals in France do not boycott social benefits.”

Beyond its sheer stupidity, the remark is a concentrated dose of resentment and contempt. Analysis of a commercial relationship has been abandoned in favour of an old repertoire of stigmatisation, with Algeria as scarecrow and Algerians as scapegoats.

This is where a certain Bolloré-branded press has arrived: less information, more resentment; less analysis, more provocation; and the same pathological obsession with turning every Franco-Algerian issue into a trial of Algerians. By scraping the bottom of public debate, CNEWS — a principal vector of the far-right sphere — confuses journalism with hateful score-settling. In doing so, it helps prepare the ideological ground on which the extreme right hopes to prosper ahead of the April 2027 presidential election.

Algeria Gate: The sequence is unlikely to please those in France who view Algeria solely through the prism of authoritarianism. Invited on France Inter, Ségolène Royal refused to label the Algerian regime “authoritarian,” redirected the discussion toward French realities and called for a reset with Algiers.

Pressed repeatedly by journalist Benjamin Duhamel, she replied: “No, I cannot say that… It is up to the Algerian people to define themselves.” She acknowledged certain problems in Algeria but rejected a blanket characterisation, contrasting with much of the French media’s persistently negative framing.

Turning the mirror on France, she asked: “And France… what is France?” citing recent tensions around school protests and police interventions. France, she noted, also faces its own problems; it is difficult under those conditions to act as permanent judge of others.

On the cases of Boualem Sansal and French journalist Christophe Gleizes, she maintained her refusal to describe the regime as authoritarian and criticised the detention of an Algerian consular agent by France as unwise. Challenging the systematically negative image of Algeria, she asked whether the Pope would have visited the country if it were as portrayed, and whether the violence seen in the streets of Paris itself is not “barbaric.”

Beyond the controversy, Royal advocated a pragmatic approach: restoring diplomatic relations would be “intelligent,” particularly to strengthen energy cooperation and allow France access to Algerian gas. She also highlighted green hydrogen and urged Europeans to work more closely with their Maghreb neighbours and Africa more broadly; a discourse that stands in clear contrast to the moralising tone of certain French commentators.

Algeria Gate: A controversy erupted after the French magazine Le Point published an article by Kamel Daoud entitled “Imaginary Monologue of a Franco-Algerian Woman,” illustrated by a photograph of Algerian actress Hana Mansour. According to the actress, this use was made without her authorisation.

Hana Mansour states that she was neither approached nor consulted and publicly denounces the association of her image with a text to which she says she is completely foreign. She also refuses that her photograph could lead people to believe that she adheres to the content or the editorial line of the article.

The actress is now demanding the removal of her photo from the article as well as from related promotional materials. She also indicates that she reserves the possibility of taking the necessary steps to have her rights respected.

The affair thus raises the question of the right to one’s image and the use of a photograph of a real person to illustrate a story presented as imaginary. At this stage, however, it is appropriate to speak of a challenge formulated by Hana Mansour: the available elements do not make it possible to affirm that a court has established an illegal use of her image.