Boualem Sansal, an ordinary citizen who “says out loud what Algerians think quietly”

« Here, no one knows Boualem Sansal, who speaks in the French media. People who meet him see him as an old man, someone affable, a gentleman without fuss… » In Boumerdès, Karim, a civil servant in his fifties, is one of the rare Algerians to have read the Franco-Algerian author. It is in this seaside resort of 1 million inhabitants, 45 kilometers east of Algiers, that Boualem Sansal lived for many years – he had only very recently chosen to go to France. If Karim recognizes him and « some literary talent »he admits to not being on the same wavelength when the writer talks about “politics”. « He confuses Islam and Islamism and plays the unhealthy game of the French right-wing and far-right political class »he thinks.

Listing tweets, from Édouard Philippe to Marine Le Pen, which ask the French government to obtain clarification from Algiers on…