Are France and Algeria on the brink of a political clash? On Tuesday, France said it was expelling 12 Algerian diplomatic officials.

This diplomatic escalation came one day after Algeria announced the expulsion of the same number of French officials and a week after France's public prosecutor's office opened criminal proceedings against three Algerians including an employee of the Algerian consulate.

They are suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of Algerian government critic and influencer Amir Boukhors in a Paris suburb in April 2024.

The latest tensions highlight the renewed downward spiral in the relationship between the two countries with the exception of summer 2022, when French-Algerian relations had experienced a temporary high .

Back then, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Algeria and symbolically described his country's former colonial rule there as a "crime against humanity".

"This was a much-noticed historical and political symbol that was not taken for granted in France," political scientist Hasni Abidi from the Geneva Center for the Study and Research of the Arab and Mediterranean World, told DW.

"Even more, it happened more than 60 years after its withdrawal from Algeria," he added.

There had been many deaths on the French side during the colonial period, as well, especially during the Algerian war of........

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