This youth who dreams of immigration and even risks living without papers in the West rather than continue "being consumed like a candle” in the country they continue loving passionately. A divided society where a golden youth without taboos flocks to Algiers’s trendy discotheques while the underprivileged youth of Belcour, the Kasbah, Bab el Oued or the suburbs, hesitates between rebellion and resignation. In the evening, near the port, dozens of small groups of young adults hang around the cargoes bound for Europe, hoping each night to illegally embark and never see Algeria again.
Between beer, hashish, rap and raï, their despair breaks out without violence, but as time flies away, the less daring give up. For the past 20 years, I have watched with sorrow, this youth under 30 (almost 50% of the population) that has never stopped looking across the Mediterranean.
The Hirak - a movement of Friday demonstrations since February 16, 2019 in Algeria - has brought a glimmer of hope as well as national and international pride. But will all this energy spent over a whole year, this rage to demand the destitution of an entire system bear its fruits? Abdelmadjid Tebboune won the presidential election on Friday, December 13, 2019, but was immediately challenged by the powerful protest movement. Interrupted by the appearance of the Coronavirus, the road still seems long ...
