The Franco-Algerian novelist and essayist, who has been missing for six days, is said to be detained by the Algerian security services and risks prison.
Still pending, the fate of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal mobilizes the French authorities and moves the political class. A critic of the Algerian regime, he was reportedly arrested last Saturday at Algiers airport, after landing from a flight from Paris. According to corroborating but unofficial sources, he is in the hands of the Algerian security services and has been held incommunicado for six days, for “intelligence with the enemy». «The President of the Republic is very worried and is monitoring the situation carefully.“, says those around Emmanuel Macron, recalling that the head of state naturalized the Algerian writer in person in 2024.
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The former prime minister, Édouard Philippe, said he “deeply concerned” of the disappearance of the writer who “embodies everything we cherish: the call to reason, freedom and humanism against censorship, corruption and Islamism”. The candidate for the next presidential election thus questioned “the French and European authorities to obtain precise information and to ensure that he can move freely and return to France whenever he wishes”. In his wake, the number two of his Horizons party, Christian Estrosi, also urged France and the European Union to “weigh with all their weight so that he is immediately released”. The mayor of Nice also called “all French, European and Algerian artists and writers to mobilize immediately”.
Shows of support have also multiplied among Les Républicains (LR). MEP François-Xavier Bellamy denounced an Algerian regime “completely bankrupt”, Who “only thinks about suppressing dissenting voices.” For her part, the president of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse described a “courageous writer” and a “enlightened whistleblower against Islamism”whose “immediate release” must be requested by France, “without conditions in Algiers”.
National Rally (RN) MP Laure Lavalette took the opportunity to attack the Algerian policy led by Emmanuel Macron. For seven years, all attempts by the head of state to get closer to Algiers have failed. A break definitively consummated at the end of October during an official visit to Morocco, a neighboring country and rival of Algeria. “The Algiers regime seems to be responding to Emmanuel Macron's monthly “pledges”. Everything must be done to obtain the release and safety of Boualem Sansal.declared the spokesperson for the RN group in the National Assembly on “total support” to Boualem Sansal before calling “to the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister” to demand the release of “our compatriot”.
At the head of the Reconquest party, Éric Zemmour described the writer as a «ami». “He is a genuine freedom fighter. The French government must demand his immediate release.he said. Same story with his former number 2, Marion Maréchal, now patron of his Identity-Libertés movement: “He never bowed to the Algiers regime, he never stopped warning of the danger of Islamism. If his arrest is confirmed, French diplomacy and the President of the Republic must mobilize without delay to obtain the release of Boualem Sansal..
If the reactions are more numerous on the right, some figures on the left have risen to protest against the possible arrest of the writer, like the socialist Jérôme Guedj. “We are waiting for news of Boualem Sansal and his release. A free voice cannot be muzzled.insisted the member for Essonne. His colleague senator Laurence Rossignol, for his part, highlighted the dual French-Algerian nationality of the novelist to demand his release: “It is therefore one of our nationals who would be detained for an offense of opinion in Algeria. France must do everything possible to ensure that he is released without delay.” Same request made by the PS mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse, regarding this “great writer”. “No censorship of artists or authors can be accepted. His free speech is precious, we must be able to hear it, quickly. France cannot be silent”he said on X.
