The Dakar did not leave Algeria. It is Algeria that let the Dakar go — three times.

Selma Bouzid — Alger, Algérie — 2026-09-11

Note on method. Every figure in this investigation carries its source and its year. We worked from the official historical document of the Dakar organizer, from agency dispatches, from the travel advisories issued by foreign chanceries, from African Union and IATA documents, and from the Algerian and Moroccan press. We flag explicitly the claims that rest on a single or anonymous source — there are some in this investigation, and we refuse to present them as facts. Finally, we write from Dakar: it is the finish line of the rally we are discussing, and the point of departure of the passengers we are discussing.

🏁 The rally crossed Algeria eleven times

We have to start by restoring a fact many people do not know, including in Algeria.

The rally crossed Algerian soil in eleven editions: 1979 to 1988 — ten in a row — then 1993. This is not a reconstruction: it is the organizer's own count, in its official historical document, which gives country by country the number of editions crossed between 1979 and 2009. Algeria appears there with eleven editions, ahead of Morocco (twelve) but over an older period.

And there is better: the rally was officially called “PARIS – ALGER – DAKAR.” From 1979 to 1988, that is the name that appears at the head of each edition in the organizer's archives. Competitors crossed France to Marseille or Sète, loaded their vehicles onto ships, and the rally resumed in Algiers.

The African leg therefore started from Algiers in nine editions. The Algerian cities crossed depend on the year:

And there is one thing almost nobody knows, including in Algeria: an Algerian won the Paris–Alger–Dakar.

Miloud Ataouat, born in Ouargla, won the truck category of the 1980 edition, at the wheel of a SONACOME M210 6×6 — a truck of Algerian manufacture. The organizer's official historical document nevertheless lists him as “(Fra),” that is, French. We are setting the record straight: the rally that bore the name of Algiers was won by an Algerian, in an Algerian truck, and official history wrote it otherwise.

That is the best story lead in this whole investigation — and it belongs to us. It is not a token display of pride: it is a verifiable fact, in the organizer's own document, one line away from the error that erased it.

One technical point that articles on this subject systematically get wrong: In Guezzam was never the rally's main crossing point. Competitors left Algeria through different posts depending on the year — Djanet toward Niger in 1983 and 1988, Tamanrasset toward Iferouane in 1984, 1985 and 1986, Bordj Badji Mokhtar toward Mali in 1980, Timiaouine toward Mali in 1981 and 1982. Remember Djanet: we come back to it.

⚠️ Two withdrawals, two causes — and we must stop confusing them

This is the most important point in this investigation, and it is almost always told wrong, including by the Algerian press.

There were two distinct interruptions, thirteen years apart, for two different reasons.

First withdrawal: 1989. A decision by the organizer, and it happens BEFORE the civil war.

The 1989 edition is run under the name “Paris – Tunis – Dakar.” The decision was taken by the organization of the rally's founder, for security reasons. The Algerian civil war, for its part, begins with the interruption of the electoral process in January 1992. Writing that the rally left Algeria “because of the black decade” in 1989 is therefore chronologically false. The real context of 1989 is the aftermath of October 1988.

Second interruption: from 1994 onward. There, yes, it is the civil war.

1993 is the last year Algeria appears on the route — and it is the smallest edition in the rally's history, with 153 entrants. From 1994 onward, Algeria disappears and never comes back. The reason cited by Agence France-Presse is explicit: the Algerian route “has become too dangerous because of Islamist threats.”

One thing we did not find, and we say so. We found no Algerian text — decree, order, statement — withdrawing the authorization from the rally, neither in 1989 nor in 1994. In the available sources, this is a decision by the organizer, not a refusal by the Algerian state. It is a nuance that matters: it means that the rally was never driven out. It left, and nobody held it back.

🚨 Three attempts, three failures — and it was not insecurity that killed them

Here now is what nobody tells, and it is the heart of this investigation.

Attempt No. 1 — 2005: the Hoggar Rally.

A rally is prepared on a Hassi Messaoud – Tamanrasset route, with Hubert Auriol, two-time Dakar winner, as co-organizer. It is announced in June 2005, with 82 entrants from 12 nationalities. It is cancelled. The reason reported by the press: the route crossed the Hoggar National Park, a protected area holding a wildlife and plant reserve and thousands of rock engravings.

An honesty caveat, and it is important: this explanation rests on a 2006 Algerian press article citing an anonymous source, corroborated by no statement from the Ministry of Culture. We therefore present it as a press allegation, not as an established fact. What is established is the existence of the project and its cancellation.

Attempt No. 2 — 2010: the founder's family calls for its return.

According to the Algerian press, members of the family of Thierry Sabine — the founder of the rally, killed in 1986 in a helicopter accident in Mali — asked for the rally's return to its original itinerary, out of respect for him. A single source, with no named attribution: we cite it as such and nothing more.

Attempt No. 3 — December 2017: the official offer. And there, everything changes.

📄 December 2017: the Dakar organizer offers the rally to Algeria

Amaury Sport Organisation, owner of the Dakar, sent the Algerian authorities an official proposal for a “Dakar Series Algérie”: a professional and amateur rally of six days, starting in September 2018.

The document contains this sentence, which we quote as it stands:

“This event would be organized to the highest organizational standards and would benefit from media coverage of global scope […] The Dakar Series Algérie would be the unique opportunity, for the Dakar family, to set foot in Africa again after 10 years of presence in South America.”

Algeria was then the first country in Africa to receive such an offer. Christian Prudhomme, director of ASO, traveled to Algeria in December 2017 and met several senior officials, including the Minister of Youth and Sports.

As of January 5, 2018, the Algerian authorities had not replied.

Then, in March 2018, a running series of contradictory announcements:

Three contradictory versions in three weeks, two of them coming from the same person. It is a textbook case of premature announcement — and we publish it because it is instructive.

❌ And the result: nothing. Absolutely nothing.

We checked the complete calendar of the “Dakar Series” created by the organizer, event by event, from 2008 to 2020: Hungary, Romania, Portugal, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Morocco, China, Mexico, India, Botswana, Spain, Chile.

No event in Algeria. On any date.

And what follows is worse. The Dakar has been run in Saudi Arabia since 2020, with a contract extended to 2029. In other words: the organizer that proposed in 2017 to “set foot in Africa again” ended up settling in the Middle East.

And the Dakar director said so publicly in January 2026, about a return through North Africa: the northern part is, according to him, “totally impossible to approach with current geopolitics.”

The Algerian project died in silence. No statement from ASO, no statement from the Algerian ministry ever announced its abandonment. People simply stopped talking about it.

That is why the headline of this investigation is that one: the Dakar did not leave Algeria. It is Algeria that let the Dakar go — three times, in twenty years.

✈️ And meanwhile, Africa goes elsewhere

We now have to widen the frame, because the rally and air traffic tell exactly the same story.

The passenger from Bamako who wants to go to Dubai does not pass through Algiers. He passes through Addis Ababa or Istanbul. The container going from Nigeria to Europe does not transit through Djen Djen. And since 2020, even the desert rally is run in Saudi Arabia.

The competitors' figures, to gauge the scale:

Read the last line twice. The gap between Air Algérie and Royal Air Maroc is now only 42,000 seats — around 5%. And Air Algérie is growing faster than the Moroccan carrier. The game is not lost. It is tightening.

The good news few people know: transit already works at Algiers. An international connecting passenger stays in the international zone without a visa, their baggage is transferred automatically, and the connection time is 15 to 30 minutes. The number one technical condition of a hub is met.

What is missing is the rest: there is no hotel in the sterile zone, no comfortable rest area, and no lounge officially described at Algiers airport. A passenger on a night layover has nowhere to lie down.

And here is the advantage nobody exploits, demonstrated by the competitor itself. Turkish Airlines, the global model of the connecting hub, writes itself that its guided tours are in English only and that there is “no selection of medical or religious meals.” On a hub that captures traffic between Africa, Asia and Europe.

A welcome in Wolof, Fulani, Bambara and Hausa, with a hot snack, is therefore not a good intention: it is an identified gap at the leader, and a documented competitive advantage.

But the competition is already installed here. Algeria is the first country on the list of 101 states eligible for Turkish Airlines' free hotel program, with a dedicated contact address. The competitor does not settle for flying over us: it has a contractual arrangement targeted at the Algerian market.

And the sky lock remains shut. Of the 38 states that have joined the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), Algeria is not among them. More serious: of its 16 bilateral agreements with signatory states, none is compliant with the continent's rules, and its compliance rate with the Yamoussoukro rules is 19%.

Except that — and this is the argument that should give pause — Morocco, which has signed, stands at only 9%. Algeria, which has not signed, already applies African rules better than Morocco. Signing and applying would therefore not mean catching up with Casablanca: it would mean overtaking it.

🛣️ The route we propose — and it already exists

We examined three options, and we give all three, with their real obstacles.

Option A — The full historic route, all the way to Dakar. Algiers → Tamanrasset → exit via Niger or Mali → Dakar. A decisive obstacle. Niger and Mali are at the highest alert level in several chanceries, armed escort there is paid for, mines have been reported north of Agadez, and clashes were documented at Tessalit in May 2026. And the Dakar organizer itself declares North Africa “totally impossible” today. This option is not difficult: it is closed.

Option B — An entirely Algerian route. And here is the decisive fact: it already exists.

Algeria already organizes national rallies of more than a thousand kilometers. A rally of 1,770 kilometers was run in 2015, another of 1,117 kilometers in 2017, and the Algerian championship continues — with, in 2026, 39 drivers entered at Zemmouri and the nineteenth edition of the Rallye des Colombes.

In other words: the expertise exists, the vehicles exist, the drivers exist, and the kilometers exist. What is missing is not capacity — it is the event.

And here is the detail that is worth gold, because it shifts the debate. The research established that what blocks a rally in Algeria is neither geography nor security: it is law and money. The documented constraints for national events are administrative constraints: an imposed route on organizers, a mandatory guide, an escort, and a restricted use of satellite positioning. In other words: the desert is not closed — it is locked by rules heavier than those of our neighbors. And events of 1,000 kilometers were still being run in November 2022.

This completely changes the demand to be formulated. It is not about asking for roads: they exist. It is about asking for a lighter authorization regime for sporting events in the far south — a text, not a budget.

And history hands us the route. The rally left Algeria via Djanet in 1983 and 1988. A route Algiers → Djelfa → Ghardaïa → El Menia → In Salah → Tamanrasset → Djanet therefore puts a historic itinerary back into service, and it presents three decisive advantages: it crosses no border, it crosses the Hoggar and it arrives in the Tassili n'Ajjer, a World Heritage site. Cars amid the rock paintings: no country in the world can offer that finish-line image.

Option C — A mixed route, Algeria plus one workable Sahelian country. We looked: no Sahelian country can be documented as workable today. Added to this is a physical obstacle rarely mentioned: the land border between Algeria and Morocco has been closed since August 1994. We will not publish an option we cannot substantiate.

⚠️ What really blocks it — and the figures are more modest than one might think

We will hide no objection, because that is the only way to be believed.

Money first — and it weighs less than one imagines. Entry fees for the Dakar 2026 are €32,650, €45,900 and €20,400 depending on the category. Those of the Africa Eco Race 2026: €20,900, €12,400 and €28,900. The budget of an amateur crew is around €100,000. That is not nothing, but it is not the obstacle of a Formula 1 Grand Prix: we are talking millions, not hundreds of millions.

One objection does hold, however, and we accept it: Algeria already postponed its own national rally, in 2019, for lack of money — on the order of 5 billion centimes, around 50 million dinars. A country that postpones its national rally cannot ask for a world rally before settling that point. It is harsh, it is true, and it is the first thing to fix.

The federation. The Algerian federation of motor sport is recognized by the FIA and by the FIM — that is a reality, and a point of leverage. But it is underfunded, and its official website is empty.

The circuits: according to 2016 FIA data, Algeria then had only two karting circuits. There is no certified permanent circuit. For a cross-country rally, that is not a blocker — you race on roads — but it says something about the state of Algerian motor sport.

The permits, and in particular the cultural parks. This is a point to settle before drawing a route: a course crossing a national park or a cultural park requires specific permits. The 2005 precedent shows that it is not a prohibition in principle, but a possible objection to a given route. The solution is simple: go around the protected areas, or negotiate a supervised passage. It is not an obstacle, it is a step.

And here is the legal element that changes the nature of the demand. Algeria's sports law — Act No. 13-05 of July 23, 2013 — provides, in its Article 212, that any sporting event organized in Algeria by a foreign operator requires the prior agreement of the minister in charge of sports and the opinion of the relevant federation. That is exactly the situation of Amaury Sport Organisation.

In other words: asking for the rally's return is not requesting a favor. It is asking for the application of a procedure that Algerian law has already provided for. And its Article 214 makes an impact study legally expected for a major event — which answers in advance the objection that the economic benefits are not demonstrated: the law requires that they be studied.

On the other hand, and it must be said: the law provides nothing on the route. The words “route,” “itinerary,” “rally” and “motor sports” appear nowhere in it, any more than in its implementing decree. The only text that attaches is a reference to a 1984 decree on the highway code — and that text, we did not find it. It is the first document to request from the Ministry of the Interior.

The customs constraints on bringing competition vehicles in and out are not lifted: it is real administrative work, and an international organizer will check it before committing.

No economic impact study exists for this type of event in Algeria. We will therefore not promise any benefits: we will say that they are not measured.

And one objection that does not hold — we verified it: the rally was never attacked in Algeria. We looked. No attack, no kidnapping targeting the rally on Algerian soil was found in the sources. The security argument that is systematically raised against this project rests, for Algeria, on no fact. What did happen is a serious accident in 1988 — the Belgian motorcycle rider André Malherbe, who fell on the Bordj Omar Driss – Tamanrasset stage, was left quadriplegic. A real tragedy, which demands a medical setup equal to it — but which is not an attack.

🏛️ Decision-makers: the eight decisions our correspondents ask you to take

This investigation is written from Dakar, that is, from the finish line of the rally and from the point of departure of the passengers. From there, the question is simple: why do they pass elsewhere?

We are not asking to be listened to. We are asking for decisions. And five of these eight decisions cost not a single dinar: they require a text, a publication or a written answer.

One thing we impose on ourselves, and it costs us. We could have opened this investigation with the most sellable line on the subject: “80% of intra-African traffic passes through non-African hubs.” It is false. The study commissioned by the African Union Commission itself establishes 84.5% direct flights and only 1.1% connecting outside Africa. We would rather lose a good argument than lose our credibility.

[[CHART]]

Growth in seats to Africa (August 2026) | 16,8 | 13,2 | %

Compliance with the Yamoussoukro rules | 19 | 9 | %

Seats offered to Africa (thousands) | 826 | 868 | thousands

[[/CHART]]

Look at these three bars. On growth, Algeria is ahead of Morocco. On the application of African rules, Algeria does more than twice as well — without having signed anything. On volume, the gap is 5%.

This chart says one thing: Algeria does not have a capacity problem. It has a decision problem.

🎯 The conclusion: an offer that sleeps wakes nobody

We write from Dakar. Here, the rally is a memory — the old ones remember the trucks that arrived at Lac Rose after crossing the Algerian Sahara. And here, nobody understands why Algeria no longer comes through us.

The truth of this investigation comes down to three sentences.

The rally came eleven times, it bore our name, and it started from Algiers.

It left in 1989, before the war. It did not come back after 1993, because of the war.

And since then, three attempts have died — not under bullets, but in drawers.

An official offer from the Dakar organizer has been sleeping since December 2017. Answering it requires no stadium, no circuit, no billions: it requires a letter and a decision.

The Algerian Sahara is the largest desert in Africa. The rally crossed it eleven times. The roads are there. The drivers are there. The kilometers are there.

What is missing is someone who answers.

📚 All the sources — so that everyone can check

Rally — history and routes — Amaury Sport Organisation / dakar.com, official historical document “RETRO 1979-2009,” statistical table by country and the route section of each edition, archived in 2012; Agence France-Presse, January 4, 2008, picked up by La Libre Belgique, on the last Algerian edition of 1993 and the threats from 1992 to 2008; Jeune Afrique, January 16, 2004, on the organizer's decision in 1989; TSA Algérie, January 5, 2018; Algérie 360°, March 14 and 18, 2018; Ennahar Online, March 27, 2018, denial by the president of the Algerian federation; EFE agency, March 28, 2018; La Dépêche de Kabylie, June 21, 2005; Algérie-Monde, April 15, 2006 (anonymous source — press allegation); Echorouk Online, February 13, 2010; Aujourd'hui le Maroc, April 27, 2005; complete calendar of the “Dakar Series,” 2008-2020.

Air transport — African Union Commission, IATA and InterVISTAS, study on the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), June 2021; African Civil Aviation Commission, official list of signatory states, 2026; African Union, data on compliance with the Yamoussoukro rules; IATA, blocked revenues in 26 African countries, 2025; OAG, seat capacity to Africa, August 2026; Skytrax, African airport ranking 2026; Turkish Airlines 2025 annual report and list of countries eligible for its free hotel program; Air Algérie, fleet and traffic data, January 2026.

Security — travel advisories from the French, Belgian, American and Swiss chanceries, consulted in 2026; statements by the Dakar director, January 2026.

Final note on method. We discarded the following figures and claims from this article, after verification: “the rally stopped in 1989 because of the black decade” (false, the civil war begins in 1992); “Thierry Sabine died in the Algerian desert” (false, it was in Mali); “In Guezzam was the rally's main crossing point” (false); “the rally was attacked in Algeria” (no fact found); and the “80% of intra-African traffic” (false).