What was Algeria’s role in the French riots? 

In March 2012 a French Algerian called Mohammed Merah murdered three soldiers and shot dead three Jewish children and a rabbi in southern France; three years later two French Algerian brothers murdered the staff of Charlie Hebdo and later in the year men of Algerian heritage were among the terror cell that slaughtered 130 people in Paris. The two teenage killers of the elderly Normandy priest in July 2016 could also trace their lineage to that region of North Africa, and it is an Algerian woman awaiting trial who is accused of the horrific rape and murder of 12-year-old Lola last October in Paris. 

These crimes elicited scant comment from Algeria. As a government spokesman said in refusing to allow Merah to be buried in the land of his fathers: ‘Algeria has nothing to do with this case.’

The Algerian government took a similar line after the Kouachi brothers targeted the office of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015.