WEEKEND ROW IB ALGERIA

The Algerian government has given in to the pressure of western lobby by saying no to the traditional Islamic weekend, Thursday and Friday, that has reigned in the country for the last 30 years. The Maghreb country will in this way align itself with other Arab countries like Jordan, Syria and the Monarchies of the Persian Gulf, while Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania have accepted the Western weekend for years. It was a ‘conciliatory’ decision and a new ‘mixed weekend’ of Friday and Saturday, has been adopted. The case for abandoning the Islamic weekend by the western weekend was made on the logic that it was “an unavoidable economic necessity” as 70% of Algeria’s trade was with the European Union, the United States and Japan who have the western weekend. The western weekend was abandoned in 1976 by the former president Houari Boumediene to signify a break with the former French colonisers.