“Denounce 1968”? The French Senate has already written what comes next — and the words “free movement” are in it
Antoine Delcourt — Paris, France — 2026-09-15
Methodological note. This file is built almost exclusively on official French documents: a Senate report, a ministerial answer, the record of a vote in the National Assembly. We quote word for word, we give the dates, and we ourselves flag the passages that do not suit us. That is the only way to sustain a file like this.
🗳️ The facts: a vote, and what it is exactly worth
Thursday 30 October, at 11 a.m., the French National Assembly adopted a resolution “calling for the denunciation of the 1968 Franco-Algerian accords”, tabled by the Rassemblement national group.
The result, and it matters: 185 votes for, 184 against. One vote. It is the first time a text from the Rassemblement national has been approved by the National Assembly.
Who voted for what: for — the RN deputies, their allies of the Union des droites pour la République, the Les Républicains and Horizons deputies. Against: the left, the presidential party and the government.
And now the clarification that changes everything — it comes from the Assembly's official record: the text is “of strong symbolic and political significance, but without legislative value and not binding on the government”.
To translate: this vote repeals nothing. It denounces nothing. It expresses a wish. The 1968 accord is still in force — and it will remain so as long as the French government does not denounce it itself.
The reactions, for their part, were immediate. Marine Le Pen spoke of “a day that can be described as historic”. The leader of the UDR, Éric Ciotti, hailed “a victory for France, which is ceasing to be humiliated by the Algerian dictatorship”.
Remember Mr Ciotti's phrase. We will come back to it — because the French Senate itself uses very different words.
📜 What the French Senate had written — a year before the vote
Senate information report no. 304 (2024-2025), law commission, rapporteurs Muriel Jourda and Olivier Bitz. Title: “Les instruments migratoires internationaux : mettre fin à la cacophonie”.
The report devotes an entire part to the 1968 accord. And its first sentence is the one nobody quotes:
“The conditions of movement, employment and residence in France of Algerian nationals have historically not fallen under ordinary law but under a special regime first set by the Évian Accords of 19 March 1962, then by a bilateral accord concluded on 27 December 1968 and amended three times in 1985, 1994 and 2001.”
Read it twice. The French Senate says that the special regime for Algerians in France does not begin in 1968: it begins in 1962, at Évian. 1968 is only one floor.
🔓 And here is the sentence everyone avoids
Still in the same Senate report:
“Contrary to a widespread idea, the philosophy of the 1968 accord did not consist in liberalising migration flows between France and Algeria, but, on the contrary, in regulating them further. The free-movement regime established by the Évian Accords had in fact resulted in a large and largely unexpected volume of Algerians in France. In this context, the 1968 accord set up a special regime of movement and admission to residence for Algerian nationals alone.”
There it is. It is written, it is official, it is French, and it is exactly what we have been saying for years.
The Évian Accords meant free movement between the two countries. It produced “a large and largely unexpected volume of Algerians in France” — the Senate's phrase. And it is precisely to slow it down that the 1968 accord was signed.
So when the “denunciation of 1968” is demanded today in the name of tightening immigration, what is being demanded is the denunciation of the very text that had been written precisely to close the door opened in 1962.
This is not an opinion. It is the reading of the Senate of the French Republic.
⚖️ And now, the argument that does not suit us — we give it anyway
Because a file that cites only what suits it is worth nothing, here is the passage where the same Senate contradicts the “return to 1962” thesis:
“The hypothesis sometimes raised of a return to the Évian Accords is in any event legally unfounded, even though the Algerian authorities would probably not fail to defend it for political reasons.”
And the argument is developed by the Interior Minister of the time, Bruno Retailleau, heard on 27 November 2024. His thesis: by signing the 1968 accord, France and Algeria intended to “substitute” its provisions for those of Évian — and not to supplement them. So Évian would not return: it is ordinary law that would apply.
We report this analysis as it stands. It is serious, and we will not claim otherwise.
But — and this is where the file turns around — the same Retailleau concedes two considerable things.
First concession: the 1968 accord contains no denunciation clause. He says so himself: “it would in that case be for France to prove that the accord does not exclude such a possibility”. In other words: it is for the one who wants to get out to demonstrate that he has the right to get out.
Second concession: there is “a risk of litigation” — and a notice period should be respected, a time limit that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 23 May 1969 frames.
So the denunciation is neither automatic, nor assured, nor free of legal risk. The Senate itself writes that this measure “would have a significant diplomatic, political and economic cost and could therefore only be considered as a very last resort”.
💰 And the central admission: “a very advantageous regime”
It is the Senate's phrase, not ours:
“ […] the general observation of a very advantageous regime for Algerians.”
And the report gives the detail, backed by official French figures. According to the DGEF, family immigration accounted for 55 % of first residence permits issued to Algerian nationals in 2022 — that is 15 527 permits — against 34 % for Moroccans and 40 % for Tunisians.
The four advantages identified by the law commission:
- autonomous pathways of access to residence ;
- more flexible conditions of issue for certain permits ;
- facilitated access to long-term permits ;
- a more flexible family reunification regime.
And Retailleau himself draws the conclusion, before the Senate: these advantages have “profoundly structured Algerian immigration into settlement immigration, unlike Moroccan and Tunisian immigration, which today is more economic and student-based”.
And he finally lets slip this sentence, which is an admission: “There is no legal basis for refusing Algerian nationals the renewal of ten-year residence certificates, even when their behaviour constitutes a serious threat to public order, which is terrible.”
“Which is terrible” — those are his words. What he describes is not an exorbitant privilege: it is a rule of law that applies, and that bothers him.
🛢️ And now, let us talk about 1962 — because that is where everything begins
On 19 March 1962, the Évian Accords were not limited to the fate of persons. They include in particular, in the official instrument:
- a “Declaration of principles on economic and financial cooperation” ;
- a “Declaration of principles on cooperation for the development of the natural resources of the Saharan subsoil”.
Read the second one again. The Saharan subsoil. This is not a text about visas: it is a text about oil and gas.
And the architecture went even further. In the following months were signed: a protocol concerning the execution of the commitments entered into by the Organisation commune des régions sahariennes (OCRS), an agreement relating to a technical body for the development of the Saharan subsoil, and an accord relating to the application of the “Saharan petroleum code”. On 29 July 1965, an accord settled “the questions touching on hydrocarbons and the industrial development of Algeria”.
Measure what this means. In 1962, France was not only negotiating the departure of its administrators: it was negotiating a legal framework for the exploitation of the Saharan subsoil. An organisation — the OCRS — whose commitments were still being executed in the month of August 1962. And a petroleum code specific to the Sahara.
It is not us saying it: the archives of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces themselves classify their 1962 files under the heading “Application of the Évian Accords, Mers-el-Kébir and Sahara problems”. Mers-el-Kébir and the Sahara: that is also what the Évian Accords represented, on the French side.
And what history made of it must be said without triumphalism or shame: these texts were renegotiated in 1965, and the petroleum chapter ended with the nationalisation of hydrocarbons, on 24 February 1971. Algeria took back its subsoil — by negotiation, then by decision.
🎯 The biter bitten: why this operation can backfire
Here is the reasoning, in four steps, and it contains no hazardous assertion.
First step: the 1968 accord contains no denunciation clause. (Finding of the Senate and of the minister.)
Second step: in the absence of such a clause, it is the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties that applies — and it is for France to demonstrate that it has the right to denounce. (Analysis of the minister himself.)
Third step: this denunciation would be contestable — “a risk of litigation”, in his own words. An international judge could therefore be seized of the matter.
Fourth step: and before that judge, what would be pleaded? That the 1968 accord forms a whole with the texts of 1962 — which is precisely the French thesis for saying that Évian does not return. But then, one cannot, in the same movement, carve up the architecture to keep only the pieces that suit.
That is the whole problem, and it is simple: one cannot say “1968 replaced 1962” in order to refuse free movement, and then say “1962 no longer counts” in order to avoid the rest. It is one or the other. If 1968 falls, what remains is 1962 — with its free movement, its Saharan bodies and its petroleum code.
Our position is therefore simple, and there is nothing of a bravado about it: if France wants to denounce the 1968 accord, let it denounce it. Algeria has no reason to cling to a text that its partner no longer wants. But let no one be surprised, afterwards, that 1962 is reopened. A founding text cannot be half closed.
⚖️ What we concede, because it is true
We will not say that the Algerians of France live in a legal paradise. The same Senate report notes stipulations that are “on certain points less favourable than the rules laid down by the Ceseda” — notably for students. A special regime is not a regime without flaws.
Nor will we say that the “return to 1962” is legally certain. The Senate writes that it is “unfounded”, and we report it as it stands. Our argument is not that this return will happen — it is that whoever denounces reopens, and one does not reopen without assuming what was inside.
And we will not claim that this vote is an immediate threat. It repeals nothing. The former diplomatic adviser Patrick Stefanini has moreover indicated that Emmanuel Macron had “no intention whatsoever” of denouncing the accord. We do not confuse a resolution with a decision.
🎯 The conclusion, in four sentences
On 30 October, the French National Assembly passed by a single vote a resolution calling for the denunciation of the 1968 accord — a text with no legislative value, which repeals nothing.
The French Senate, for its part, wrote that the special regime for Algerians begins with the Évian Accords of 19 March 1962, that free movement came from Évian, and that it was the 1968 accord that had been made to regulate it.
And 1962 does not speak only of persons: it speaks of an organisation common to the Saharan regions, of a technical body for the subsoil and of a Saharan petroleum code.
So if 1968 is to be undone, let it be undone — but let it not be forgotten that 1962 lies underneath. And that Algeria, for its part, recovered its subsoil in 1971.
🔗 The sources, with direct access — click and check for yourself
- The vote of 30 October, the score of 185 against 184, the absence of legislative value and the reactions — LCP — Assemblée nationale, 30 October, updated 4 November: https://lcp.fr/actualites/denonciation-des-accords-franco-algeriens-de-1968-un-texte-du-rn-adopte-a-une-voix-pres
- The Senate report: the Évian Accords as the origin of the special regime, the free movement of Évian, the substitution by the 1968 accord, the “legally unfounded” character of the return to Évian, the absence of a denunciation clause, the risk of litigation, the “very advantageous regime” and the DGEF figures — Sénat, rapport d'information n° 304 (2024-2025), commission des lois: https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-304/r24-30422.html — https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-304/r24-30424.html — https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-304/r24-30427.html — https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-304/r24-30428.html
- The hearing of Mr Bruno Retailleau of 27 November 2024, and his concessions on the absence of a denunciation clause and the risk of litigation — Sénat: https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-304/r24-30429.html
- The list of the instruments of 1962, including the declaration of principles on the Saharan subsoil, the OCRS, the Saharan petroleum code and the hydrocarbons accord of 29 July 1965 — collection of Franco-Algerian bilateral accords: http://fothman.free.fr/ParPays/bi_dz.html
- The French archival classification “Application of the Évian Accords, Mers-el-Kébir and Sahara problems (1962)” — Service historique de la Défense: https://www.servicehistorique.sga.defense.gouv.fr/es/node/1461320
These links open the documents cited directly, with their dates and their reference numbers. They are enough to verify the whole of this file, quotation by quotation.
Final note. All the quotations in this file are reproduced without being truncated, including those that contradict our thesis — that is the condition for the others to be credible. We did not have access to the full text of the Évian Accords or to that of the accord of 27 December 1968: we therefore do not quote them directly, and we do not present any of their provisions as established beyond what our sources report of them. Where we do not know, we write that we do not know.