PARIS — Ultranationalist social media influencers from Algeria are spreading hate across France — the country that used to rule it. The trend has triggered a wave of nervousness in government in Paris, with several high-profile arrests over the past few weeks. A handful of online influencers have built a large audience, incited violence and terrorist activity, and, in some cases, targeted French-based opponents of the Algerian regime.
The influencers are “profiteering from a context of heightened tensions between France and Algeria” French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told weekly newspaper L’Express.
Relations between France and its former colony have been fraught for decades, poisoned by resentment over the 132-year bloody rule, violence committed during Algeria’s war of independence that ended in 1962, and, more recently, deadlock on migration issues.
They took a nosedive after President Emmanuel Macron over the summer sided with Algeria’s regional rival Morocco in a long-running feud about Western Sahara, giving a nod to Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed territory.
At least seven people have been arrested since early January for their online posts, where they are accused of inciting violence against individuals and, in some cases, calling for terrorist attacks against France.
In one of the most high-profile cases, an Algerian living in the western city of Brest who goes by the name of zazouyoucef, is accused of glorifying terrorism after posting several inflammatory video clips on TikTok, where his account had 400,000 followers. At least one of the clips mentions by name Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and seemingly threatens his opponents.
“Among these influencers, there are lone wolves, crazy people who have no link [with the Algerian regime] but who acted against the backdrop of preexisting rhetoric,” said Chawki Benzehra, a France-based online Algerian activist and opponent to the regime who has played an active role in flagging violent posts on his social media accounts. None of posts has resulted in an actual act of violence that has been documented or been linked to a credible terrorist threat.
Pulling the strings
A number of pro-regime, nationalist Algerian influencers have emerged over the past couple of years, but things took a turn after France’s Western Sahara move, Benzehra said. “It was like an orchestrated wave … Toward the end of last year, people started to flag video clips that were way over the line.”
The French government has refrained from accusing the Algerian government of pulling the strings.
“At this stage we have no evidence that this is a coordinated campaign,” Retailleau said.
“We haven’t seen artificial amplification or coordination,” a French security official who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said. “Generally speaking, the Algerian ecosystem isn’t really structured or experienced [when it comes to online influence],” he added.
The very high number of followers for several of these accounts has caught the eye of officials and academics. One of the online activists arrested last week, dubbed Mahdi B. had more than 800,000 followers on TikTok. He was sentenced to prison for glorifying terrorism, local media reported.
“I have been surprised by the number of followers,” said Benjamin Stora, a prominent historian who was commissioned in 2020 by Macron to work on the issue of French colonization and ways to mend wounds left open after the country’s war of independence. “[Their message] is not very elaborate … But here is one idea which is nationalism,” he added. “The nationalist craze in [part of] the Algerian diaspora is new.”
‘Wide echo in France’
France is home to a diaspora of more than 2 million Algerian immigrants and descendants of immigrants, according to French national statistics institute Insee.
Most of the accused influencers, whose accounts have now been deleted by social media platforms, are publishing in Algerian Arabic, and their audience is both inside and outside of France.
“The accounts who have the biggest following have an Arabic-speaking audience spreading over multiple countries,” a government adviser with knowledge of the investigations said. But they have “a wide echo in France,” he said.
The two countries are also at loggerheads over the fate of Boualem Sansal, a 75-year-old French-Algerian writer and outspoken critic of the Algerian regime, who was detained after stepping off a plane in Algiers in November, with Macron accusing Algeria of “dishonoring itself.” The European Parliament on Thursday approved a resolution calling for Sansal’s immediate release, calling it a human rights violation.
Macron’s Western Sahara move came after unsuccessful efforts by the French president to try to mend the relationship. It was interpreted by some as a pragmatic move by Macron, presumably to strengthen its relationship with one of the few remaining allies it has in the region, at the expense of Algeria. A lot of France’s historical allies in the Sahel — many of which are former colonies — turned hostile.
The Western Sahara move and Macron’s open support to Sansal infuriated the Algerian regime, which some are now suspecting of fueling the online campaign powered by members of the Algerian diaspora, either directly or by proxy.
Algerian state-controlled media has a long history of attacking France, fueling the fire of resentment and anger against Paris among part of the Algerian population at home and the Algerian community abroad. After Sansal’s arrest and reports about Macron’s first criticism, Algeria’s state-owned press agency lashed out at France’s political class and accused it of infringing on Algerian sovereignty.
“The Algerian regime is extremely fragile and the more fragile it is, the more it hits France,” said a French diplomatic official who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “The French position on Western Sahara is seen as a stab in the back.”
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