His relatives have not heard from him for a week. Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal has been missing since his arrival in Algeria on Saturday November 16. He was reportedly arrested a few minutes after leaving Algiers airport, where he had just landed from France, according to several French media, which cite his relatives.
Aged 75, this novelist and essayist is known for his very critical positions against the power in place in Algeria and religious fundamentalism. His books, published in France, are sold freely in Algeria but the author is controversial there, particularly since a visit to Israel in 2014. Despite everything, he travels regularly between Algeria and France, whose nationality he obtained this year. year.
Controversial remarks involved?
According to our colleagues from the weekly Marianne, Boualem Sansal, who “no longer gave any news to his relatives since his arrival in Algiers”, was “arrested by the police and imprisoned by the regime”. “We thought that his cell phone had been confiscated by the authorities upon his arrival at Algiers airport,” his friend Xavier Driencourt told the newspaper Le Monde. “But he did not respond to his emails, his WhatsApp, nor his landline at home,” added the former French ambassador to Algiers (2008-2012, 2017-2020) who said he had dinner the day before with the author. “He returned home on an Air France flight the next day. He was not worried,” continued Xavier Driencourt.
On If this information is confirmed, France must react.”
But why was Boualem Sansal arrested? According to our colleagues from RFI and Le Monde, his arrest could be linked to recent controversial statements in the far-right French media Frontières, on YouTube.
On October 3, the writer spoke on the border between Algeria and Morocco, a historically thorny subject between the two countries: “When France colonized Algeria, the entire western part of Algeria was part of Morocco: Tlemcem, Oran and even as far as Mascara. This entire region was part of the kingdom (of Morocco) (…) When France colonized Algeria, it established itself as a protectorate in Morocco and decided, arbitrarily, to attach all of eastern Morocco to Algeria, by drawing a boundary.” Comments which were widely taken up by the Moroccan media “and which must not have pleased Algiers”, according to RFI.
A tense context between Paris and Algiers
With these comments, the writer had, according to certain observers interviewed by Le Monde, crossed a “red line” in the eyes of the Algerian authorities. After his custody, which can last several days, Boualem Sansal could be presented before the public prosecutor of Algiers, according to RFI, and prosecuted in particular for “undermining national unity and the territorial integrity of the country” and “incitement to the division of the country”, affirm our colleagues. Charges punishable by prison sentences, according to the Algerian Penal Code.
This episode comes in a context of tensions between Paris and Algiers over Western Sahara. This strip of land located between southern Morocco and northern Mauritania has been the subject of a conflict for almost 50 years. A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara is de facto controlled mainly by Morocco, which is proposing an autonomy plan under its sovereignty. But it is claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers, who are demanding a self-determination referendum, planned during a ceasefire in 1991 but never organized. In July 2024, the French president recognized Morocco's sovereignty over this region as the “sole basis for settlement” of the Western Sahara conflict.
For former ambassador Xavier Driencourt, the arrest of Boualem Sansal is a way for Algeria to “test France” with which relations are now frozen.
A controversial author in Algeria
Born in 1949 in Algeria, Boualem Sansal met with success from his beginnings, in 1999, with “The Oath of the Barbarians”, a novel recounting the rise in power of fundamentalists which contributed to plunging his country into a civil war which caused at least 200,000 deaths between 1992 and 2002.
He has received numerous literary prizes for his works, including the Grand Prix du roman from the Académie française in 2015 for his novel “2084: The End of the World”, published by Gallimard. In 2022, the writer was awarded the Mediterranean Prize for his novel “Abraham or The Fifth Alliance” from the same publisher. He is the third Algerian writer to receive it after Tahar Djaout and Kamel Daoud, 2024 Goncourt Prize, all three committed against the Algerian political system and Islamism.
In 2019, the writer supported Hirak, the protest movement against the candidacy of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika for a fifth term. On several occasions, Boualem Sansal had also protested against the fate reserved for migrants by his government.
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “very concerned about the disappearance” of the writer, the head of state’s entourage said. “State services are mobilized to clarify his situation,” it was specified, adding that “the President of the Republic expresses his unwavering attachment to the freedom of a great writer and intellectual.”
