Rabat – Many members of the Algerian diaspora in France took to the streets of Paris on September 3 to call on the Algerian regime to step down and meet the demands of the Hirak, an anti-establishment movement that has been demanding democratic reforms since February 2019.
The demonstrations were to commemorate the October 5, 1988 riots.
Driving the 1988 riots were rising prices, the high rate of youth unemployment, and the measures of austerity announced by the government. Faced with overwhelming waves of disfacted young Algerians, the army cracked down on protesters and killed 25.
The Hirak movement started on February 16, 2019, six days after the then old and incapaictated President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his candidacy for a fifth presidential term.
As in 1988, today’s waves of chronically disillusioned young Algerians are calling for radical reforms and total break with the socioeconomic and political statu quo that has ruled the North African country since independence.
Read also: Algeria Seeks to Further Escalate Tensions with Morocco
Between President Bouteflika’s forced resignation and the election of current President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in 2019, many observers warned against the hijacking of the Hirak momentum by “Le Pouvoir,” Algeria’s country’s self-entitled politico-military establishment.
Many Algerians do not regard Bouteflika’s successor, current President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, as a people’s leader. Barely 40% of eligible voters voted in his election in December 2019, and the majority of Algerians have since described the election as rigged because the five contenders were all close associates of Bouteflika.
Due to the entrenched elite’s control on Algerian politics, the shouts in Paris in 2021 will sound eerily similar to those of 2019. The anniversary of the October 5 riots and the calls for an inept regime to step down mark the revival of a hijacked revolution for those who want a more democratic Algeria.
But the protests come as the regime is reviving its usual trick of demonizing critics and anti-establishment activists as foreign-paid troublemakers and supposed agents of Morocco and Israel aiming to destabilize Algeria and derail its “democratic march.” In such a context, it remains to be seen whether the apparently resurging Hirak movement can achieve meaningful change.
