The author, aged 75, disappeared on Saturday November 16. According to media dependent on the Algerian government, he was arrested on his arrival at Algiers airport, without any explanation being given.
Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, aged 75, was arrested on Saturday November 16 at Algiers airport, coming from France, according to Algérie Presse Service, the press agency which depends on the Algerian ministry of Information, confirmed Friday, November 22. This confirmation comes after several days of concern.
• Arrested in Algiers
On Friday, the press agency which depends on the Algerian Ministry of Information Algérie Presse Service published an article in which it reported that Boualem Sansal was arrested at Algiers airport on Saturday November 16, almost a week ago. earlier.
“The arrest of Boualem Sansal, pseudo-intellectual, revered by the French extreme right, has awakened professionals to indignation,” writes the agency on its website.
Little is known about this arrest, other than that the author had just arrived from France. The reasons for his arrest are not known.
• Relatives “without news” of him for days
The confirmation of his arrest by the press agency dependent on the Algerian government confirms what his relatives had feared for several days and who said they had “no news” of him since his arrival in Algiers.
Several French media reported since Thursday that Boualem Sansal had been arrested in Algeria, without this being previously confirmed.
His arrest comes at a time when diplomatic relations are particularly tense between France and Algeria at the moment, since Paris said last July that it supported the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara, a hotly contested territory.
• A writer with positions that are debated
While no reason has officially been given for his arrest, the daily Le Monde suggests that statements by the writer, naturalized French in 2024, may have irritated the Algerian authorities. In the columns of the media Frontières, reputed to be far-right, Boualem Sansal had in fact taken up the Moroccan position according to which the territory of the country would have been truncated under French colonization for the benefit of Algeria. However, this would be a “red line” for Algiers, according to Le Monde.
Furthermore, the writer, who claims to be an atheist, regularly takes a position against Islamism, warning France and more broadly Europe on the subject. These declarations earned him both praise from various right-wing and far-right figures and criticism from the left and in Algeria. Boualem Salam defends himself against any Islamophobia.
“What I have continued to denounce is the instrumentalization of Islam for political and social ends,” he told Agence France Presse in 2017.
Committed, he participated in Algiers in 2019 in the demonstrations which led to the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He was also criticized in Algeria for going to Israel in 2014 to receive a literary prize.
• His publishing house requests his “immediate release”
Gallimard, Boualem Sansal's publishing house, called for his “immediate release” on Friday, confiding at the same time its “deep concern” for their author, after the announcement of his arrest.
Several Algerian authors also reacted. The 2024 Goncourt Prize Kamel Daoud denounced the fact that his “brother” is “behind bars, like the whole of Algeria”, while Yasmina Khadra denounced, to the AFP, an arrest which “unbears” her .
The day before, Thursday, Emmanuel Macron said he was “very concerned” about the disappearance of the Franco-Algerian, even though his arrest had not yet been confirmed. “The President of the Republic expresses his unwavering attachment to the freedom of a great writer and intellectual,” argued the Élysée.
