ALGERIA in Isolation, fancy that, let's verify !!!

David Ashworth — Londres, Royaume-Uni — 2026-09-24

Algeria is said to be alone. Isolated. Marginalised. Snubbed by everyone, stripped of partners, sitting in a diplomatic desert. This is not a rumour: it is a standing column. It is written several times a week, in Rabat, with a consistency that commands respect.

So we did something strange. We read their articles. Then we checked. Here is the result.

First, the anthology

So that we cannot be accused of caricature, let us quote them. These are their headlines, verbatim — and we opened every page, one by one, to read them with our own eyes. No second-hand headlines.

In France:

- “Algeria: the double diplomatic setback that isolates it more than ever” — L'Express

- “Sarah Knafo: France must ‘divorce for good’ from Algeria” — Le JDD

- “Algeria: chronicle of an isolation foretold” — Mediapart (Le Club)

In Morocco:

- “Tebboune, the isolation of a rabid man” — Le360

- “Algeria is marginalising itself” — Le360

- “The generals of Algiers more isolated than ever” — Le360

- “Isolated on the Sahara file, Algeria seeks Russia's support” — Hespress

- “Sahara: Morocco advances, Algeria remains a prisoner of its grudges” — Hespress

- “A flying visit by Nicolas Lerner breaks Algeria's diplomatic isolation for a few hours” — Barlamane

Nine headlines, nine pages opened, nine findings.

And one detail we note in passing: the word “divorce”. So this is where the debate stands, in France, in 2026. We are no longer discussing a quarrel over visas: we are talking about marriage and separation. We trust we will be allowed to find the image frivolous for a subject that concerns two million people.

As for “the isolation of a rabid man”, we leave our colleagues to answer for their medical vocabulary. We shall content ourselves with checking their facts.

The Pope

Before we go into detail — one fact. Just one. And it seems to us that it settles the question.

From 13 to 23 April 2026, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV undertook an apostolic journey to Algeria. This is not an Algerian source, it is not a press release: it is the official programme published by the Holy See.

The programme, in order:

- arrival at Algiers' Houari-Boumediene international airport;

- courtesy visit to the President of the Republic;

- meeting with the authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps, at the Djamaa el Djazair Conference Centre;

- private visit to the welcome and friendship centre of the Augustinian Missionary Sisters;

- departure for Annaba, where the Holy Father visits the archaeological site of Hippo, the retirement home of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and talks with the Augustinian order;

- then departure from Algiers for Yaoundé.

The Pope. In Algeria. In Algiers, in Annaba, in the footsteps of Saint Augustine.

The Vatican is not a gas customer. It is not a fair-weather ally, nor a Sahel country, nor a state that can be bought. It is a sovereign state of eight hundred inhabitants that chooses its journeys with extreme care, and does not choose them to please anyone.

We await with curiosity the article that will explain that the Pope went to the wrong country.

Now, the incident

Let us take the choice morsel, signed Le360 — a site of which it must be recalled, not out of polemic but out of method, that it belongs to the group in power in Rabat, and therefore to a party to the conflict.

Headline: “Tebboune, the isolation of a rabid man”. We will pass over the medical diagnosis, the author being manifestly not a doctor. But let us retain the sentence that carries the whole piece:

“No great heads of state visit Algiers.”

It is clear, it is crisp, it is verifiable. And it is false.

Because in the same article, a few paragraphs further down, the author himself writes:

“In Algiers' diplomatic calendar of recent years, the ceiling of important visits is limited to Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed […] and a few leaders of Sahel countries.”

“Algiers had also received Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.”

“Algiers had also received the American envoy Massad Boulos.”

Let us re-read that calmly.

Nobody visits Algiers. Apart from a President of the Republic, a European head of government, and a senior adviser to the President of the United States.

We do not know whether the author re-read himself. We only know that his proofreader did not either.

And since the subject is “let us verify”, let us verify properly

Here is what actually happened in Algiers in 2026, with the dates:

And an African digital summit — the first on the continent — held in Algiers from 28 to 30 March 2026.

Eleven first-rank visitors in one year, including a universal religious head of state. Not eleven speeches: eleven aircraft, eleven protocols, eleven delegations.

We note, for our colleagues in Rabat, that Italy is in Europe, that Spain is in Europe, and that Germany — and we are coming to it — is in Europe. That was precisely the point of their demonstration.

The paragraph that should silence them

For there is a file we have seen nowhere in their columns, and we understand why.

On 16 and 17 July 2026, in Berlin, at the Algerian-German Economic Forum, thirty-one agreements and memorandums of cooperation were signed.

Among them, a new natural gas supply contract between Sonatrach and VNG, signed on the evening of Thursday 16 July, in the presence of German State Secretary Frank Wetzel.

And here is what this German official declared — these are not Algerian words:

He hailed Algeria's “key role” and described it as a “reliable partner, as the second gas supplier for Europe”.

Thirty-one agreements. With Germany.

And meanwhile, a certain press explains that Algeria is isolated “within its European environment”.

We do not know how one signs thirty-one agreements with a country from which one is supposedly isolated. We assume it is one of the mysteries of Algerian diplomacy.

Spain, or the country that isolates it so hard that it buys its gas

Another European file, another demonstration. And this one is even simpler, because it can be read in the importer's own figures.

On 20 July 2026, Pedro Sánchez came to Algiers. He did not come alone: he was accompanied by the heads of four major Spanish energy companies.

The result of the visit, as reported by the Chinese agency Xinhua — so not by Algiers:

Algeria supplied 64 230 gigawatt-hours of natural gas and liquefied natural gas to Spain during the first half of 2026, or 33,9 % of the country's total gas imports.

A third of Spain's gas. Leading supplier.

And Mr Sánchez said two things, again according to Xinhua:

- he described Algeria as a “strategic partner for Spain”;

- and he confirmed Madrid's commitment to broadening cooperation — energy, industry, infrastructure, agriculture, education, culture, migration management.

Let us add a technical detail, because it is worth more than a commentary: the Medgaz pipeline, which links Algeria directly to Spain, has an annual capacity of around 10.16 billion cubic metres — and Sonatrach holds 51 % of it.

And Algeria asked one thing of Madrid: that it plead, within the European Union, for the revival of the Algeria–EU Association Council, which has not met since 2020.

That is isolation for you: asking a European partner to gather Europe around a table.

The list, and it is long

While we are at it, here are the agreements signed this year. We give them out of order, because disorder is the only way here to account for such a pace:

• Chad — 28 agreements and memorandums (industry, trade, public works), during President Déby Itno's visit, 24 April 2026;
• Germany — 31 agreements and memorandums (gas, pharmaceuticals, rail, automotive, trade), 16-17 July 2026;
• Angola — agreements in around ten sectors (hydrocarbons, agriculture, pharmaceutical industry, renewable energies, health, mining, aviation), plus a Joint Business Council, 13 May 2026;
• Turkey — agreements and memorandums signed in Ankara, at the close of the first session of the Algerian-Turkish High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, 7 May 2026;
• Côte d'Ivoire — comprehensive cooperation agreement in hydrocarbons, mining and energy, 28 March 2026;
• China — Sonatrach-Sinopec memorandum of understanding, signed in Beijing, 28 August 2026.

And here we speak only of energy, mining and industry. We have not opened the files on health, education, agriculture or digital affairs. We may be reproached for stopping along the way. We prefer to leave the reader the pleasure of believing that we have been exhaustive.

And meanwhile, in New York

Something else, since isolation is supposed to be measured in the great assemblies.

On 24 September 2026, in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Zimbabwe's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amon Murwira, had these words about Algeria:

“Algeria represents a strategic partner for his country”

and he hailed “the sustained efforts made by Algeria during its successful term on the Security Council”.

The same day, the African Union Peace and Security Council hailed President Tebboune's efforts in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism.

A few months earlier, in Algiers, before Parliament, Angolan President João Lourenço had designated the Algerian president as

“the champion of the African Union in the field of the fight against terrorism and extremism”.

And the Secretary-General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, Philip Mshelbila, received in Algiers on 21 June 2026, hailed

“Algeria's central role within the Forum”.

A useful clarification: the Gas Exporting Countries Forum has its headquarters in Algiers. So does its research institute. It will be agreed that this is a strange way to isolate oneself.

The cowards

One point remains, and it is the one that interests us most.

None of these articles is written from Algiers. They are written from Rabat, from Paris, from an office fifteen hundred kilometres from the country they describe, by people who have never set foot there, who have never requested a right of reply, who have never offered to come and see.

They write about a country they do not frequent, with sources they do not name, in newspapers whose owners are parties to the conflict.

And note the mechanism, it is always the same:

- a head of state comes to Algiers? He is not a real head of state.

- thirty-one agreements are signed? It is influence-buying.

- a gas pipeline is built? It is a petrol-station country.

- the country holds its rank in an institution? They run a headline on an absence.

We search in vain, in this output, for a single article that acknowledges a fact without turning it around, a single paragraph that concedes anything, a single line that entertains the idea that Algeria might succeed at something.

There is a word for people who attack without ever introducing themselves, who criticise everything and propose nothing, and who snigger from the height of their keyboard without ever coming to check on the spot.

That word is not flattering. They deserve it.

The “petrol-station country”, or the insult that backfires

Let us finish on the phrase, because it is unintentionally the most instructive of all.

“Tebboune is not regarded as a genuine head of state, but at most as the manager of a petrol-station country.”

A petrol-station country. We looked: it exists in no diplomatic nomenclature. It is an insult, not a concept.

But let us grant it one quality: it is unintentionally accurate.

Because after all, who goes to a petrol station? Those who need something. And what does one do at the pump? One pays.

The article says so itself, without realising it:

“President Tebboune is welcome nowhere, except in a few countries enticed by the prospect of extremely cheap Algerian gas.”

“Enticed.” The word is the author's.

So let us summarise their thesis: Algeria is supposedly isolated, because everyone wants its gas.

It is a definition of isolation that we leave the reader to judge.

What we concede, and it is serious

We are not here to say that all is well, and we will not say it. A piece that concedes nothing is a piece worth nothing.

Three things are true, and we write them.

First, the rupture with the United Arab Emirates is real, and it has a cost. We do not deny it, and we will not pretend that a strong country rejoices in it.

Second, the tensions with France are real — visas, the 2013 agreement, deportations. We have written our articles about them, we do not erase them here.

Third, and this is the point our adversaries could hold against us: Algeria's term on the UN Security Council ended in December 2025. It sat there in 2024 and 2025, and left at its normal expiry — Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Latvia and Liberia replaced it in January 2026.

We write this paragraph even though it works against us. We write it because a newspaper that hides what embarrasses it does not deserve to be read — and because the campaign we are talking about relies precisely on that kind of omission. Not us.

That said: a statutory expiry is not an isolation. A rotating seat that ends after two years is not a door slamming shut. And Zimbabwe, which has just been elected for 2027-2028, came to ask Algeria to pass on its experience. One does not ask advice from an isolated country.

So, let us verify

Let us take up their sentence one last time: “no great heads of state visit Algiers.”

In 2026: Italy, Niger, Mauritania, Chad, Angola, Spain, Mali, Syria, the United Nations, Iran. Not counting an African digital summit.

And Germany, with thirty-one agreements and a gas contract, speaking of a “reliable partner”.

We do not ask to be believed. We ask that people go and verify — which, evidently, no one on their side has taken the trouble to do.

They have their pens, their clickbait headlines and their owners.

Algeria has pipelines, contracts and partners who sign.

Everyone will judge which of them lasts longer.

Sources: Le360 — “Tebboune, the isolation of a rabid man” (fr.le360.ma): all the quotations in the first part are taken from it, including the list of visitors received in Algiers that the article itself enumerates · Hespress (Arabic and French), Barlamane, Rue20, Medias24, TelQuel, Bladi.net, Alyaoum24 — headlines noted in a documented press review, available on request · Radio Algérienne / APS — 2026 visits and agreements (Meloni 25/03, Tiani 15-16/02, Ould Diay 07/04, Déby Itno April, Lourenço 11-13/05, Sánchez 20/07, Maïga 24/08, al-Chibani 04/06, de Mistura 15/06, Global Africa Tech 28-30/03) · Radio Algérienne (source: Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Ministry of Foreign Affairs) — Algerian-German Economic Forum in Berlin, 31 agreements and the Sonatrach-VNG contract, 16-17/07/2026, statement by German State Secretary Frank Wetzel · Xinhua / china.org.cn — 28 Algeria-Chad agreements, 24-25/04/2026 · Radio Algérienne (source APS) — Algeria-Angola agreements, 13/05/2026 · Radio Algérienne — Algerian-Turkish Strategic Cooperation Council, Ankara, 07/05/2026; Algeria-Côte d'Ivoire agreement, 28/03/2026; Sonatrach-Sinopec protocol, Beijing, 28/08/2026; Attaf–Murwira meeting, 24/09/2026; African Union PSC, 24/09/2026; statement by João Lourenço, 13/05/2026; statement by Philip Mshelbila, GECF, 21/06/2026 · Holy See, Vatican Press Office — Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV in Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea (13 to 23 April 2026) – Programme, 16/03/2026: official programme of the journey, including the courtesy visit to the President of the Republic, the meeting at the Djamaa el Djazair Conference Centre, and the Annaba and Hippo stages · Xinhua, 20-21/07/2026 — Spain, Algeria eye closer energy cooperation: 64 230 GWh supplied to Spain in the first half of 2026, or 33,9 % of Spanish gas imports; description of Pedro Sánchez as a “strategic partner”; capacity of the Medgaz pipeline and Sonatrach's stake; Algerian request to revive the Algeria–EU Association Council · ONU Info, January 2026 — end of Algeria's term on the Security Council.