ALGIERS — Deep in the Algerian Sahara, daily protests against a pilot hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, project are now well into their second month. The demonstrations have spread to several towns and have provided opposition parties with a new platform at an especially precarious moment for the government, as oil prices have slumped and the declining health of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has removed him almost completely from public view.
Hundreds of police officers sealed off streets to block an antifracking march in the capital, Algiers, on Tuesday as opposition groups held rallies around the country in solidarity with the southern protesters in the distant oasis town of Ain Salah.
At first glance, Algeria might seem an unlikely place for the sort of popular movement against fracking, a method of tapping into deep deposits of shale gas, that has unfolded in many Western countries. Money from oil and gas accounts for 97 percent of exports and keeps afloat a socialist system of generous public subsidies for everything from food to housing.
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“We are not talking about austerity; we are talking about rationalizing spending,” he said in a national broadcast. “We are now in crisis, but Algeria has anticipated this.” The finance minister added that Algerians would now have to pay for their own medicines.
But the peacefulness and persistence of the antifracking movement have captured the imagination of opposition parties and other critics of the government.
“This is a citizen movement,” said Omar Belhouchet, the editor of the daily newspaper El Watan, who has reporters in the area. “It is very civilized. It is about a national resource; it touches the whole issue of power and corruption. This is citizenship affirming itself.”
Amir Jalal Zerdoumi contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on February 26, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Shale Gas Project Encounters Determined Foes Deep in Algerian Sahara. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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