“Over-indebted Algeria” and “Algeria in crisis”: two fakes, one single method — here is what the IMF, the ONS and the foreign exchange market actually say
Houda Lakhdari — Genève, Suisse — 2026-09-13
Method note. Every claim in this file is confronted with a source that is named, dated and verifiable in one click. When a criticism is well-founded, we write it and we do not hide it — the section “What we concede” is there for that. When a figure is false, we give the exact figure and the document that carries it. That is the only difference between a newspaper and a rumour.
🗣️ What is being said about Algeria since 10 September 2026
On 10 September 2026, Algeria severed its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates. Since then, two items have been circulating, with the same intention: to show that it is Algeria that is paying, and that it is paying dearly.
The first is a text with no author, no date and no source, which describes “queues outside the shops” in Algiers and Oran, “repeated power cuts”, “a rapid fall of the local currency”, “a mass withdrawal of global brands” and “a record surge in prices”.
The second is a chart titled “Public debt in North Africa — based on the IMF's 2026 data”, in which Algeria appears at 185 billion dollars and 62.8% of GDP.
We took both, and we verified them. Here is the result, in order.
⚠️ First fake: “two days after the rupture, Algeria is collapsing”
1. The currency — the evidence is dated, and it says the opposite
On Saturday 12 September 2026 — exactly two days after the rupture — these were the rates recorded at Square Port-Saïd, in Algiers, the country's main informal exchange point:
| Rates on 12 September 2026 | Buying | Selling |
|---|---|---|
| Euro | 275 dinars | 277 dinars |
| US dollar | 234 dinars | 236 dinars |
| Swiss franc | — | 289 dinars (−1 dinar) |
And the article of the day itself writes that the euro and the dollar “show the same figures as the day before”, confirming “the stability of the euro and the dollar against the Algerian dinar”. **Source: Algérie Zoom, 12 September 2026.**
The day before the rupture, on 9 September, the euro was quoted at 276 dinars — “the same rate as Sunday 6 September” — and already at the same level at the beginning of August. **Source: TSA Algérie, 9 September 2026.**
And here is what the text “completely forgets”: the dinar did not weaken, it RECOVERED. Its all-time high is 292 dinars to the euro, in November 2025. Since then, the euro has fallen back to 277.50 dinars on 31 December 2025, and has been flat around 276. A currency that is coming back from its record is not a currency that is collapsing.
2. Prices — the national statistics office says the opposite
These are not our figures: they are those of the National Office of Statistics (ONS), published on its official website:
| Indicator (ONS) | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual inflation | +1.2% |
| Food prices | −1.6% |
| Fresh agricultural products | −2.1% |
| Mutton and offal | −8.1% |
| Coffee | −4.7% |
The ONS itself describes this rate as “among the lowest in the region and beyond”. And the World Bank, in its monitoring report on the Algerian economy, notes “a sustained deceleration of inflation since mid-2024, after peaks of close to 10%” in the two previous years.
The text speaks of a “record surge in prices”. Food prices are falling.
3. Electricity — true, but two months earlier, and for another reason
It is the only point in the text that rests on real facts. And that is where the method shows.
On 15 July 2026, a general outage plunged Algiers, Constantine, Tizi-Ouzou, Bouira and Jijel into darkness. Official cause: a technical malfunction at the Sidi Okba power installation, in the wilaya of Biskra, caused by the combination of extreme heat and humidity. The Prime Minister went in person to the grid control centre.
On 17 August 2026 at 14:21, national demand reached 21,650 megawatts — a third record in five weeks. The grid held. The headlines of the specialist press say it: “the national electricity system is holding”.
And it is not an Algerian phenomenon: the heatwave of summer 2026 caused outages in Algeria and in Tunisia, on a regional grid put to the test by exceptional temperatures.
The rupture took place on 10 September. The outages: in July and August. The text glues them back on, three weeks later, and invents a cause for them.
4. The queues — the same story as in 2021
Look for the origin of these “queues outside the shops”: you will land on an article dated 12 April 2021 — about the cooking oil shortage. Five years and five months before the rupture.
And the detail that gives the copy away: that 2021 article speaks of queues in Mila, in the Jijel region. The text that is circulating speaks of Algiers and Oran. Even the copying is sloppy.
5. Global brands — true, but since December 2024
The Inditex group — Zara, Zara Home, Stradivarius, Bershka, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti and Oysho — did indeed close its roughly twenty stores in Algeria, with more than 300 jobs suspended.
But when? “The closure, since December 2024”. Twenty months before the rupture. And why? Because of the legal framework for franchising in Algeria and the “Made in Algeria” rule on the integration rate. Nothing to do with Abu Dhabi.
🎯 The method, in four steps — it is always the same
1. You take real facts: July outages, December 2024 closures, a 2021 shortage.
2. You remove the dates. This is the decisive step, and the one that takes the least work.
3. You stick it all back onto a recent event — here, the rupture of 10 September 2026.
4. You add a cause that nobody has ever demonstrated: “because of the Emirates”.
What this text does not have: no source, no date, no signature, no newspaper name, no precise figure, no link. Not even an exchange rate. A serious article gives its sources so that it can be checked; that one counts precisely on nobody checking.
💰 Second fake: the public debt chart
The chart announces, for 2026 and “according to the IMF”:
| Country | Announced debt | Announced % of GDP |
|---|---|---|
| Egypt | ~400 billion $ | ~84% |
| Algeria | ~185 billion $ | 62.8% |
| Morocco | ~128 billion $ | 65.9% |
| Tunisia | ~51 billion $ | 84.9% |
| Mauritania | ~5 billion $ | 40.7% |
Its stated conclusion: Mauritania is the least indebted country in the region. Its real message is elsewhere: “Algeria is as indebted as Morocco, so let it stop lecturing.”
What the IMF really says
The International Monetary Fund completed its Article IV mission for Algeria on 6 July 2026. Its finding, taken up the same day by the economic press:
“Rising financing needs have pushed public debt up to 52.1% of GDP.”
52.1%. Not 62.8%. The gap is more than ten points of GDP — and it only runs one way.
A second document confirms it, and it comes from home: before the Council of the Nation, the Minister of Finance, Abdelkrim Bouzerd, put the public debt at “around 17,000 billion dinars”, specifying that it had been directed towards “investments with economic returns” — including 2,500 billion dinars for the power grid and seawater desalination plants.
And a third, which should close the debate: a Moroccan outlet, Maghreb Émergent, writes in black and white that “Algerian public debt is not a problem of level. At under 50% of GDP, it remains contained by international standards.” When the opponent gives you the figure, you can use it.
The detail that gives the chart away
We compared, country by country, the chart's figures with those of the IMF database (World Economic Outlook, April 2026):
| Country | Chart | IMF database | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morocco | 65.9% | 65.8% | 0.1 point |
| Tunisia | 84.9% | 84.9% | 0.0 point |
| Mauritania | 40.7% | 37.1% | 3.6 points |
| Egypt | ~84% | order of 85-87% | approximate |
| Algeria | 62.8% | 52.1% (Article IV) — 59.2% according to the database aggregator | 3.6 to 10.7 points |
Read that table slowly. For Morocco and Tunisia, the chart reproduces the IMF figure to the decimal place. For Algeria, no published document gives 62.8%: neither the Article IV mission (52.1%), nor the World Economic Outlook database (59.2%), nor the Minister of Finance, nor the Moroccan press. The chart is precise for everyone, and false for us.
What the chart hides — and that is where everything plays out
A public debt tells you what a state owes. It does not tell you WHOM it owes it to. Yet that is the whole question, and the chart brushes it aside completely.
In Algeria, since 2015, the state no longer finances itself on the markets. It borrows from its own central bank, through non-tradeable sovereign securities, remunerated at rates below market rates. A closed circuit — and it is a Moroccan outlet that documents it. Algerian debt is in dinars, and it is owed to Algerians.
In Morocco, it is the opposite: the debt is mostly external, in foreign currency, owed to foreign creditors. Here are the two columns, World Bank data, year 2024:
| In billions of dollars, 2024 | Algeria | Morocco |
|---|---|---|
| Total external debt | 6.9 | 68.0 |
| Foreign exchange reserves | 83.0 | 37.1 |
| Reserves ÷ external debt | 12.0 times | 0.55 times |
Look at the first line: Morocco owes ten times more to foreign creditors than Algeria. And the third: Algerian reserves cover twelve times its external debt; Moroccan reserves cover only half of theirs.
That is why the chart speaks of “public debt” as a percentage of GDP, and not of external debt. As a percentage of GDP, everything looks alike. In foreign currency owed to foreigners, everything is opposed.
And the conclusion “Mauritania is the least indebted country” is a decoy. A country of fewer than five million inhabitants, with five billion dollars of debt, serves as a foil: it makes the Morocco-Algeria comparison look anodyne, when it is the only comparison the chart wants to impose.
⚖️ What we concede, because it is true
We will not say that everything is fine, and we are not going to defend a figure for the pleasure of it.
The budget deficit is real, and it is high: around 10.5% of GDP in 2025, according to the IMF. That is a lot, by any standard.
The IMF calls for a fiscal adjustment, for broadening the tax base beyond hydrocarbons, for reforming subsidies and social transfers, and for ceasing to finance the deficit through the central bank. These recommendations are public, they are serious, and we report them as they are.
Dependence on hydrocarbons is real. The barrel has fallen back to around 72 dollars, close to the benchmark price in the finance law. When oil falls, revenues fall.
And the debt is rising: the same IMF database projects a rise in the ratio in the years to come. We say it, because hiding it would make us accomplices of the next fake.
But there is a difference between saying “the debt is rising” and saying “the country is collapsing”. The first sentence is an economic warning, and it is well-founded. The second is a campaign, and it is manufactured.
🎯 The conclusion, in four sentences
The dinar did not fall: on 12 September 2026, two days after the rupture, the euro was quoted at 275 dinars, the same figures as the day before.
Prices are not exploding: inflation is at 1.2% and food prices are falling by 1.6%, according to the ONS.
Algeria is not over-indebted at 62.8% of GDP: the IMF mission of July 2026 says 52.1%, and a Moroccan outlet says “under 50%”.
And on what it owes, Algeria owes 6.9 billion dollars abroad when Morocco owes 68. It is not the same debt, because they are not the same creditors.
🔗 The sources, in direct access — click and verify for yourself
- The dinar rates on 12 September 2026 — Algérie Zoom: https://algeriezoom.com/marche-noir-euro-dollar-restent-stables-dinar-algerien-12-septembre/
- The rates on 9 September 2026 and the November 2025 record (292 dinars) — TSA Algérie: https://www.tsa-algerie.com/dinar-algerien-leuro-et-le-dollar-stagnent-a-des-niveaux-eleves/
- Inflation at 1.2%, food prices at −1.6% — ONS, via L'Algérie Aujourd'hui: https://lalgerieaujourdhui.dz/indice-de-lons-sur-levolution-des-prix-en-algerie-inflation-maitrisee/
- The outage of 15 July 2026 and the Sidi Okba installation — El Moudjahid: https://www.elmoudjahid.dz/fr/actualite/le-premier-ministre-supervise-l-operation-de-retablissement-de-l-electricite-apres-la-panne-survenue-au-niveau-de-l-installation-electrique-de-sidi-okba-biskra-255637
- The 21,650 MW record of 17 August 2026 — Algérie Presse: http://algeriepresse.dz/un-mois-apres-le-black-out-de-biskra-lalgerie-bat-un-nouveau-pic-electrique/
- The summer 2026 outages in Algeria and in Tunisia — Selectra: https://selectra.info/energie/actualites/marche/coupures-electricite-algerie-tunisie-canicule-blackout-juillet-2026
- The queues of the oil shortage: article dated 12 April 2021 — Panorapost: https://panorapost.ma/post.php?id=31434
- The closure of the Inditex stores “since December 2024” and the Made in Algeria rule — Maghreb Émergent: https://maghrebemergent.news/fr/zara-stradivarius-bershka-la-fin-dun-cycle-pour-les-franchises-etrangeres-en-algerie/
- Algerian public debt “at under 50% of GDP” and financing by the central bank since 2015 — Maghreb Émergent: https://maghrebemergent.news/fr/dette-publique-en-algerie-le-glissement-vers-un-financement-hors-marche/
- Public debt at 52.1% of GDP in the 2026 Article IV mission — taken up by Banker.news: https://www.banker.news/143153 — and Africa Eye: https://africa-eye.com/2026/07/06/
- The 17,000 billion dinars announced by the Minister of Finance — El Khabar: https://www.elkhabar.com/fr/monde/la-dette-interieure-est-sous-controle-261656
These links open directly the articles cited, with their dates. They are enough to redo this entire file, claim by claim.
Final note. The dollar amounts are those published by the cited sources. The external debt and reserves figures are those of the World Bank, year 2024, series DT.DOD.DECT.CD and FI.RES.TOTL.CD. Where a criticism is well-founded — the 10.5% deficit — we write it without glossing it over. Where a figure is false, we give the exact figure and the document that carries it.