PARIS (AP) — A police dragnet in France has swept up three Algerian men described by authorities as social media influencers accused of posting videos inciting violence, against a backdrop of soured relations between Paris and its former colony in North Africa.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced the latest arrest Sunday evening — the third in as many days. A French media report that the minister attached to his post on X said the influencer posted a video to his 138,000 followers on TikTok that French authorities deemed anti-Semitic.
The arrests in Montpellier in southern France, the Alpine city of Grenoble, and the port city of Brest in the west come amid renewed turbulence in the often complicated relationship between France and Algeria, which shook off French rule in 1962 after a brutal war.
A shift last July in France’s decades-old position on the disputed Western Sahara region of northern Africa angered Algeria and prompted the withdrawal of its ambassador in Paris.
The French government, meanwhile, has denounced Algeria’s detention since November of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal. The 75-year-old author is an outspoken critic of the Algerian government.
The French government hasn’t linked the tensions with Algiers to the three arrests. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Sunday that France wants “the best relations” with Algeria. But he said Paris has doubts about the Algerian government’s commitment to deals agreed in 2022 that were seen as important steps toward mending their relationship.
The first Algerian influencer arrested, a 25-year-old who reportedly had more than 400,000 followers on TikTok before his account was closed down, was detained Friday morning in Brest.
He’ll be tried Feb. 24 in a Brest court on a charge of expressing support online for an act of terror, which is punishable by up to 7 years in prison, the Brittany port city’s prosecutor said in a statement.
The statement said that during police questioning, the man acknowledged that he was the author of Arabic-language videos on TikTok that called for acts of terror in France and overseas. He told police that the videos targeted opponents of Algeria’s government, the statement said.
The arrest of another Algerian, in Grenoble, was announced by the interior minister in a post on X on Friday night. The minister described the man as an influencer and said that “he too will have to answer to the courts for vile comments made on TikTok.”
The prosecutors’ offices in Grenoble and Montpellier didn’t immediately respond to emailed questions about the arrests in those cities.
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