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Algeria has long viewed France's tilt toward Morocco with suspicion. Now, a planned military exercise between the two is escalating tensions to new heights.

On Thursday, Algeria's Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador, Stéphane Romatet, to formally object to the operation, calling it an "unjustified military escalation."

Algerian officials have warned that the joint French-Moroccan drills, set to take place in September near the border with Algeria, amount to a "provocation" that will only inflame an already spiralling crisis.

The exercise, dubbed "Chergui 2025," is scheduled for Errachidia, a city in Morocco's High Atlas region. To Algiers, the location is no coincidence: it sits uncomfortably close to its border.

"This move will escalate tensions between the two countries to a new level of severity", said Lounès Magramane, Secretary-General of Algeria's Foreign Ministry, who demanded official clarification from Paris.

France's Defence Ministry has yet to comment publicly, but officials have framed the drills as part of broader military cooperation with Morocco.

The two countries maintain long-standing defence agreements and, in October 2024, conducted joint naval exercises focused on anti-submarine warfare. Morocco, one of France's largest arms buyers, views such collaborations as critical to its security strategy.

However, Algeria's reaction is not just about military manoeuvres—it is part of a broader political and diplomatic struggle with Paris.

Algerian rupture with France

The latest rupture traces back to July, when French President Emmanuel Macron broke with decades of diplomatic ambiguity and backed Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara territories.

That shift angered Algiers, which backs the Polisario Front, a separatist movement fighting against Morocco over the territory's sovereignty.Ìý

Western Sahara, a sparsely populated but resource-rich region, has been the subject of a protracted conflict between Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.

While Rabat controls roughly 80 percent of the territory, the United Nations still classifies it as "non-self-governing."

Algeria's reaction is about more than troop movements. It is part of a broader diplomatic rupture with France that has been building for months.

In November, Algerian authorities arrested Boualem Sansal, a French-Algerian writer known for his criticism of Algeria's government.

Then, in February, French Prime Minister François Bayrou called for a review of a decades-old migration agreements that grant Algerians special status in France.

Algiers rejected the proposal, condemning what it called "ultimatums"Ìýand warning that any restrictions on its citizens would be met with retaliatory measures.

A deadly attack in Mulhouse, allegedly carried out by an Algerian national, has further inflamed political discourse in France, where far-right voices have seized on the incident to push for tougher immigration policies.

Franco-Algerian relations have endured their share of crises, but this one may prove among the most consequential. Ìý

The collision of military tensions, migration disputes, and long-standing historical grievances is fuelling an unusually volatile stand-off.

Last week, Macron sought to de-escalate, calling for a "deep re-engagement" on migration talks.

So far, neither Paris nor Rabat has formally responded to Algeria's accusations of provocation.