Rabat – Algerian activist Said Bensedira, known for his online activism against Algerian government figures, was arrested by French police in Paris on Saturday, according to sources cited by the website Maghreb Intelligence.
Bensedira, who like many figures of the Algerian opposition currently resides in London, is suspected of coordinating with Algerian agents in France to target and eliminate Algerian dissidents.
According to the Maghreb Intelligence report, the planned crimes were intended to be falsely blamed on Morocco.
The arrest reportedly took place on the basis of “credible and precise information” from Moroccan intelligence.
This arrest comes as historical tensions between Algeria and Morocco reach a new high due to Algeria’s intensification of its smear campaign against Moroccan territorial integrity.
With France having overwhelmingly signaled in recent weeks its readiness to support Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in the near future, many observers expect the already tense Algerian-French relationship to further disintegrate.
When Spain officially announced its decision to support Morocco’s Western Sahara position in April 2022, Algeria repeatedly attempted to bully the Spanish government into reconsidering the decision.
As a result, other observers expect the Algerian regime to work tirelessly toward derailing the growing France-Morocco full rapprochement at all costs.
Just this past Friday, France’s Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire reiterated in Rabat his country’s readiness to accompany and support Morocco’s development efforts in the Western Sahara region.
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This further confirmed earlier reports that France would be looking to intensify its investments in Western Sahara as a way of gradually shifting its Sahara policy in full support of the Moroccan Autonomy Plan.
Earlier this week, Xavier Driencourt, the former French ambassador to Algeria, told the French media outlet Le Figaro that supporting Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara has become “part of the facts.”
Faced with such unmistakable signals of France’s readiness to fully embrace Morocco’s autonomy proposal for Western Sahara, the Algerian regime has multiplied efforts in recent weeks to warn Pars against the consequences of taking such a step.
Algeria’s state news agency, which is known for voicing the views of the country’s political and military establishment, has notably published a series of articles attacking Morocco and warning France against putting its tense but essential relationship with Algeria in irrecoverable peril.
Another Algerian news outlet, TSA, has even dismissed the seriousness of France’s perceived rapprochement with Morocco, saying that Paris is unlikely to move forward with recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.
“To appease Rabat on this issue means more than supporting the autonomy plan, a step that France is unlikely to take under President Macron’s leadership,” TSA wrote in February.
Maghreb Intelligence’s report linking Bensedira’s arrest by the Paris police to a plot by “Algerian agents” against Morocco on French soil is yet to be verified or confirmed in the coming days and weeks.
What remains certain, however, is that Algeria will do its best to prevent the occurrence of the epochal foreign policy development for which French and Moroccan diplomats have apparently been preparing the ground for the past year.
Many observers believe the sudden proliferation of French ministerial visits to Rabat suggests that France might indeed be laying the groundwork for a state visit by Macron, in which the French president would announce a momentous Western Sahara policy shift.
In such a context, it would not be far-fetched to assume that Algeria might be considering its options for derailing at all costs such a deadly blow to its activist, pro-separatist diplomacy on the Sahara.
