Jean-Christophe Rufin calls on the French Academy to urgently elect the writer – Libération

To save Boualem Sansal, let's make him Immortal. This is the wish expressed by academician Jean-Christophe Rufin, who proposed to his companions, Thursday, November 21, to urgently elect the Franco-Algerian writer. The latter was reportedly arrested on Saturday November 16 upon his arrival at Algiers airport. The initiative would be purely symbolic but would more strongly commit the French government to ensuring the protection of the author of 2084: the end of the world and would give additional gravity to the gesture of the Algerian State.

Already doubly crowned by the French Academy, in 2013 by the Grand Prix de la Francophonie and in 2018 by the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française, Boualem Sansal would, according to Jean-Christophe Rufin, have every legitimacy to claim to be enthroned under the dome. “Sansal defends the French language even more radically than certain French authors, observes Rufin, joined by Released. Without denying its own roots, showing its attachment to dialogue between cultures and countries. Even if the French language is the language of the colonizer in Algeria, it is also the international language. Boualem Sansal maintains a peaceful relationship with her.” The initiative has so far met with the agreement of several academicians such as Erik Orsenna, Barbara Cassin, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean Clair. A provision of the institution's regulations would make it possible to ignore the usual deadlines for announcing the election and to present only one candidate and not several. “This often happened, historically, in the case of high-ranking clergymen or Nobel Prize winners,” reminds Rufin.

The official decision goes to its permanent secretary, the writer Amin Maalouf. Especially since seats are vacant. But is this really the role of such an institution? «Oui, slices Jean-Christophe Rufin. The vocation of the Academy is far from being only honorary, but on the contrary to be a place of protection, of solidarity, a refuge in particular towards the French-speaking world. She has a political role to play.” Rufin and Sansal, both published in the prestigious Blanche collection at Gallimard, have known each other for a long time. “I often told him to be careful, testifies the former diplomat. But Boualem Sansal knew he was threatened both in France and in Algeria, as much by the Islamists as by the regime of his country. But he accepted this danger with tranquility. Today he is in the jaws of a diplomatic rivalry for which I fear he will pay the price. He is defenseless.”