In the photo, the man is posing between his two wives whose faces are masked by a pink heart, as a matter of modesty. He married them on the same day and is called Rachid. He is a “Skikdi”, an inhabitant of Skikda, which has earned him the nickname “Skik-deux” on social networks, further proof that Algerians can lose everything except their sense of humour! The wedding announcement is adorned with the Koranic verse that justifies marital diversity: “It is permitted to marry two, three or four of the women you like, but if you fear that you will not be fair to them, then only one, or slaves that you own”.
To avoid the criticism levelled at his predecessor, Xavier Driencourt, the new French ambassador in Algiers, François Gouyette, is said to have received confidential instructions from the Elysée Palace forbidding him to receive or meet representatives of the Hirak, the popular protest movement demanding regime change in Algeria.
According to our sources, the Elysée also demanded a change of diplomatic personnel in Algiers, imposing in particular on the new ambassador the arrival of a new political adviser, in the person of Souhire Medini, who has a double advantage: a perfect Arabic speaker, she also has strong diplomatic connections in Africa.
According to a confidential French memo, cadres of the Algerian Islamist movement Rachad were discreetly received by the MIT (Turkish secret services) in Antalya and Istanbul. The Rashad emissaries were promised financial and logistical assistance to strengthen their propaganda activities.
On 9 March, a Brazilian plane landed on the tarmac at Algiers airport. Its holds were reportedly full of doses of vaccine delivered by Israel. Algeria is already supplied with Russian Sputnik and Chinese Sinopharm vaccines, which is not surprising. Health logic follows diplomatic logic. But Israel! The country most vilified by the Algerian media, the target of all the conspiracy theories! Is the information, broadcast by the I24 news channel, which broadcasts from Tel Aviv in French, English and Arabic, serious? Even if it is only a rumour, it has the advantage of making people think.
The proposal made to Morocco by the former Trump administration to establish an Africom (United States Africa Command) relay base there has angered the Algerian authorities at the highest level.
The French should be proud. Their values – secularism, citizenship, equality – are today being waved in bruised and divided countries, where we didn’t expect it. In Lebanon, huge crowds, young, colorful, united beyond their differences, demand that an end is being put to the old confessional system. Born after the civil war, hostile to the manipulation of their small country by rival and predatory powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, these demonstrators reinvent, in Levant, the beautiful “fatherland” word. Hezbollah, contested for the first time in its own strongholds, vainly sends its soldiers to attempt to crush the movement.
Here are the main extracts from the document mentioned in our exclusive investigation on the corruption related to oil rent in Algeria.
The Egyptian businessman claims to have been robbed by the Bouteflika clan.
