Previously tolerated, the protests are increasingly closely monitored, with authorities deploying a bigger police presence in the streets and being particularly vigilant around assemblies held outside of Friday.

The crackdown has occurred despite the Amazigh achieving greater recognition in recent years, including in the constitution. A 2016 amendment declared Tamazight, the Berber language, Algeria’s second official language after Arabic, and recognized ‘Amazighness’ as a part of the national identity. In 2018, the Amazigh new year was designated as a public holiday.

Gaid Salah abandoned Bouteflika after he found out that the latter’s political career was over and that remaining loyal to him would lead to his own departure. Since then, Gaid Salah has been considered the regime’s most powerful figure and, as the army’s chief of staff, responsible for setting the course of his country’s future.

It can be said that Bouteflika came to and stayed in power with the support of the military. Over the next two decades, he was able to reduce the military’s influence and increase the power held by the presidency. Perhaps ironically, the large-scale rejection of his candidacy for a fifth term has once again given the military control of power in Algeria.

Bouteflika failed to heed the people’s calls to withdraw his candidacy because he was undergoing medical examinations abroad. Consequently, calls were made for civil disobedience for five consecutive days starting 10 March, a call that was well received. Factory workers and civil servants boycotted their jobs. Moreover, private business owners closed their shops, applying additional pressure on the authorities. However, many political activists rejected this tactic, saying it would disrupt the protest movement and cause it to change course.

Algeria currently produces 98 per cent of its electricity using natural gas. Experts affirm that the solar energy available in the Sahara will shape the future development of Algeria’s energy sector. The Algerian authorities are also moving toward supporting projects to produce different types of renewable energy. This is because such projects contribute to local electricity supply as well as to generating wealth and creating job opportunities.

Massi sings most of her songs in Algerian Arabic as well as Amazigh, French and occasionally English. She has a significant audience in North Africa and France. Her lyrics deal with real issues, often taken from her own life experiences, which are imbued with sentiments of yearning and nostalgia.

While neither the presidency nor the Ministry of Defense provided any official explanation for the dismissals, local media outlets, observers and opposition figures have increasingly linked the wave of replacements to the 2019 presidential elections, the cocaine affair and Bouteflika’s attempts to counter the widespread corruption within several state institutions or the clash of clans within the strongly fragmented Algerian regime.

His statements were welcomed in Algeria, but they caused extensive debate in France, where Macron was criticized by the far-right Front National party competing with him in the presidential race. Soon after being elected, however, Macron announced a new position. “We admit but we do not apologize,” he said about France’s colonial history in Algeria, stressing that France should not be caught up in the past but rather must overcome it to move forward and establish French-Algerian relations based on common future interests.

Although combating irregular migration and human smuggling in the Sahel region was already imminent in 2010, its significance for the EU and its member states such as Germany has increased massively since 2015. It is therefore expected that Germany and Algeria will continue to cooperate closely in this domain as the war in Mali remains a significant security threat for Algeria. Meanwhile, human smuggling and migration continue to affect political discourses in Algeria and Europe.