ABSTRACT
French policy towards Algeria under Jacques Chirac's presidency can be read along different lines. To answer the socialists' charge that the meeting amounted to support a military solution to the Algerian crisis, the Chirac administration was brought to develop a series of justifications for its decision to meet Liamine Zeroual. Chirac then proposed two sets of principles for his future policy towards Algeria: France would continue supplying Algeria with economic aid because, without it, Algeria would head for 'total collapse'; However, France would back the 'party of democracy' in Algeria. Under President Chirac, bilateral governmental relations showed no improvement. The 'change in tactics' adopted by the Chirac administration was a U-turn in the policy that the successive French governments had put forward since the cancellation of the Algerian parliamentary election back in January 1992. The shift inaugurated by the Chirac administration in October 1995 brought Franco-Algerian relations to a crisis point.
