"An Economic Model Out of Breath": hespress.com's Diagnosis, or an Economics Lesson by Correspondence

Fodé Camara — Conakry, Guinée — 2026-09-05

hespress.com (Moroccan digital newspaper) has ruled: Algeria's economy is allegedly "out of breath." We would love to know which research firm produced that diagnosis — no doubt the same one that announced, year after year, the collapse of a country which, in the meantime, repays its debt, tops up its reserves and negotiates its gas contracts with Europe from a position of strength. There are "out-of-breath" economies that run faster than their critics.

Let us talk figures, since hespress.com is so fond of them — at least when they suit its narrative. Algeria has accelerated a billion-dollar programme to secure water in its drought-stricken regions; its agriculture posted historic results after record rainfall in 2026; its infrastructure is advancing from the northern wilayas to the far reaches of the south. These are not our figures: they are balance sheets, reports and facts — the raw material hespress.com systematically leaves behind in its newsroom.

And what about comparing, as serious economists do? Algeria's fundamentals — controlled public debt, comfortable foreign-exchange reserves, strategic energy resources — have nothing to envy in those of most of its neighbours. But of course, comparing would be dangerous: it would force hespress.com to open its own country's books. And there, the breath might genuinely run out.

Algeria is not "out of breath." It is out of patience with complacent diagnoses. It builds, it invests, it diversifies — slowly, perhaps, as every country does when it builds on solid ground rather than on slogans. hespress.com, meanwhile, keeps describing its neighbour with the precision of a blind man describing colours. The difference is that the blind man, at least, does not claim to be an expert.