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Reports on renewed relations between Algeria and France. The French used to rule the place, and quit in 1962 only after a savage liberation war. Yet Algeria's welcome, both official and popular, for Jacques Chirac, making the first-ever state visit by a French president, could hardly have been warmer. Chirac proclaimed before the Algerian parliament "a shared vision of a tolerant Islam" and then signed, with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a "declaration of Algiers", forerunner of a formal treaty to underline the two countries' "special partnership". It is hard to reconcile Chirac's promise to improve visa procedures with the pledge (to the French) of his interior minister to crack down on "the huge increase in the number of visas issued, which is at the root of the growth in illegal immigration". Yet behind the Chirac rhetoric lies serious politics, domestic and international. Some 5 million Muslims live in France. Of these, 537,000 in 2001 were lawfully resident Algerian nationals. Add French citizens of Algerian origin and the total is large enough to be a permanent issue in French politics.