June 22, 2015 President Francois Hollande from France recently met with his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and had nothing but praise for him, speaking of his ‘great intellectual skill’.
Bouteflika has kept a low profile in his fourth term of being in power because of his health. The president’s allies say his cognitive and mental faculties are fine but the opposition uses the health issues against him.
President Hollande said “President Bouteflika gave me the impression of great intellectual skill, and it is even rare to meet a head of state that has this alacrity, the capacity for judgment, you ask me about his health I am not a doctor, and I didn’t come as a doctor to meet a head of state or a head of government, but what I can tell you is that the quality of the discussion that we have had for nearly two hours was particularly intense and particularly elevated. Physically I can confirm that he cannot move easily and I knew that for a while, but he has all the capabilities, he showed it, and I won’t speak of what he can do to Algeria, but about his ability to bring his wisdom and judgment to resolve world crises, I’m really saying it with sincerity and frankness, and if that wasn’t the case I would have told you,”
The Frenchman also talked about the unconfirmed reports from Libya that notorious Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar has been killed in the eastern part of the country.
“I cannot confirm because we have no one on site in Libya that could give this information, however what I can say is that we knew from our own services that Belmokhtar was in Libya, and if an operation took place and it took place and was able to hit a site is that there is a high probability that Belmokhtar was on this site, so the conclusions we can make, if I could say the following, it is that there is a big possibility that Belmokhtar was killed in this operation,”