the administrative detention of Algerian influencer Doualemn has been extended by 26 days

The man, arrested in Montpellier (Hérault) after posting a video calling for violence, was deported Thursday to Algeria, which immediately sent him back to France.

The placement in administrative detention of the Algerian influencer nicknamed Doualemn, arrested in Montpellier (Hérault) after reports for a video published on TikTok, was extended on Sunday January 12, announced the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, on LCI .

In this video, the 59-year-old “called for a severe correction, to hit a man appearing to reside in Algeria”according to the prosecution. The influencer was auditioned on Sunday by the judge of freedoms and detention of the judicial court of Meaux (Seine-et-Marne).

The Meaux public prosecutor told AFP that his detention was extended by twenty-six days. In a press release consulted by franceinfo, the influencer’s lawyers contest this decision and announce that they will appeal to the Paris Court of Appeal. “The particularly fierce determination shown by the Minister of the Interior against Boualem [le prénom de l’influenceur] takes place in an ultra-repressive context of foreigners”they estimate.

Doualemn’s arrest is at the heart of a diplomatic quarrel between France and Algeria. The influencer had been put on a plane Thursday afternoon for Algeria from where he was sent back to France the same evening, Algeria having “inadmissible”.

The Algerian government denounced on Saturday a “arbitrary expulsion” executed by a “revengeful and hateful extreme right”. “The national subject to expulsion has lived in France for thirty-six years. He has had a residence permit there for fifteen years. He is the father of two children born from his union with a French national. Finally, he is socially integrated to the extent that he has had a stable job for fifteen years”, justified the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For his part, Bruno Retailleau estimated that by dismissing the influencer, “Algeria seeks to humiliate France”. “The Algerian authorities did not want to let him land on Algerian soil, in total contradiction with the rules,” said the Minister of the Interior.