Alexandra Reza

On 30 October, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National introduced a bill to revoke the 1968 accord and put Algerian immigrants on the same footing as everyone else. Many MPs from Macron’s centrist grouping Ensemble were mysteriously absent from the chamber when the vote took place, while the traditional right were divided, with some voting for the RN’s bill. Laurent Wauquiez, a former leader of Les Républicains and an aspiring 2027 presidential candidate, said: ‘When the RN defends projects or convictions that we share, there is no reason … not to vote for what we want.’ The bill passed by 185 votes to 184. It was the first time any bill tabled by the RN has passed. It isn’t legally binding – the president can ignore it – but it is a milestone in the RN’s strategy of normalisation, in which the centre and the traditional right are colluding.

We wouldn’t want ‘people to think we were “afraid” of its existence’, Carlos Eduardo Machado, of the Portuguese secret police, wrote in a report on the literary journal Mensagem in the 1960s.

On 5 September, a group of soldiers led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya kidnapped Alpha Condé and took him to an undisclosed location. They had deposed him, they said, and dissolved the government. Later they released a video of Condé, slouched on a sofa, looking irritable. Soldiers in full uniform try to get him to say on camera that all is well. The ex-president looks at the camera. Is it the old oppositional spirit that flickers on his face, or just the arrogance of power? It is hard to tell. Condé stays silent, his feet up, shirt untucked, lips pursed.