The case of the Franco-Algerian writer, Boualem Sansal, arrested and detained since mid-November for endangering state security, continues to inflame the climate between Paris and Algiers, already very tense and exacerbated in the latter. days by the arrest of several Algerian influencers, accused by France of calling for violence on its territory.
Tension rose further when French President Emmanuel Macron declared on Monday before French ambassadors gathered at the Elysée that Algeria was “dishonors” by not releasing Boualem Sansal.
“The Algeria that we love so much and with which we share so many children and so many stories is entering into a story that dishonors it, preventing a seriously ill man from getting treatment. It’s not up to what it is,” he asserted.
Critic of Algerian power, Boualem Sansal, 75, has been in a care unit since mid-December.
Reacting Tuesday to these statements, which caused an outcry in the country, the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described them as“unacceptable”.
“Remarks from the French president which dishonor, above all, the one who believed he had to make them in such a casual and light manner. These remarks can only be reproached, rejected and condemned for what they are, a shameless and unacceptable interference in an internal Algerian matter.underlined Algerian diplomacy in a press release.
And to add: “what the French president unduly and falsely presents as a matter of freedom of expression is not one under the law of a sovereign and independent State. It is essentially a questioning of integrity. territorial territory of the country, an offense punishable by Algerian law..
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune first spoke of his arrest on December 29, calling it a‘”impostor” sent by France.
The author of “2084: The End of the World”naturalized French in 2024, is prosecuted under article 87 bis of the Algerian penal code, which punishes “as a terrorist or subversive act, any act targeting the security of the State, the integrity of the territory, the stability and the normal functioning of institutions”.
According to the French daily Le Monde, the authorities in Algiers would have taken badly statements by the writer to the French media Frontières, reputed to be far-right, taking up Morocco’s position according to which the country’s territory would have been truncated under French colonization in benefit of Algeria.
