Abstract: This research work attempts to cross literature belonging to both Algerian sociolinguistics and knowledge related to the notions of language and identity, in the construction of the relationship with linguistic otherness. This relationship, questioned in Algeria, is subject to questioning in our research based on data collected from a Twitter debate and an online questionnaire. The results of the analyses show that French, as linguistic otherness, is apprehended differently, that it is in permanent reconfiguration, and that politics, as well as history and the economy, are the fields where various negotiations and priorities of a society in motion are actually manifested. Keywords: Altera lingua, French, Algerian sociolinguistics, identity