FRANCE-ALGERIA: Paris May Rethink Its Policies After Hijacking
PARIS, Dic 27 (IPS) - The hijacking of the Air France plane by Algerian Islamic extremists over the weekend may push French authorities into re-thinking Paris' policy towards the Algerian military-led government.
Paris' support of the Algerian government has come under renewed fire after France was dragged into a hostage crisis which could easily have resulted in the massacre of the more than 170 passengers and airline crew on board.
"We have nothing to do with supporting a government that is autocratic, ineffective and corrupt," said member of parliament Jean-Francois Deniau, former president of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the National Assembly, in interviews with the press.
On the other hand, Deniau stressed it was equally necessary to take distance with the Islamic fundamentalists. "We have to make it clear to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) that its war with Algiers cannot be transported to Paris."
France and the international community heaved a sigh of relief after a small group of French elite anti-terrorist forces put an end on Monday the hostage drama that began Saturday afternoon in Algiers when four Islamic extremists took hold of the plane.
Upon the decision of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, the French forces stormed the airplane grounded at the Marignane airport in Marseilles in southern France after it was flown from the Houari Boumedienne airport in Algiers.
Contrary to fears of a carnage, the assault on the plane resulted in no deaths among the 172 people on board who included around 40 French nationals. The four hostage-takers, however, were killed during an exchange of fire with the French commando unit.
The Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which experts say is the most radical of all Algerian Islamic fundamentalist opposition, took responsibility for the hijacking which coincided with the third anniversary of the cancellation in Dec. 1991, of the Algerian legislative elections which the FIS had been poised to win.
Although it condemned the hijacking, FIS leaders abroad justified it as a punishment of France for its support of the Algerian government.
Ghassan Salame, director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), said that in three years, total French direct and indirect assistance to Algeria amounted to some 40 billion francs (roughly 7.3 billion dollars).
© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service