Benjamin Stora’s reproach to imprisoned writer Boualem Sansal sparks outcry

This is an astonishing way to evoke the case of Boualem Sansal, a Franco-Algerian writer known for his criticism of Islamism and arbitrarily detained by Algeria for eight days. This Sunday on the set of C Politique, on France 5, we suggested that the author was not exempt from all reproach. He would even have “hurt national sentiment” Algerian, according to the words of the historian Benjamin Stora, to whom Emmanuel Macron had entrusted a mission on “the memory of colonization and the Algerian war”.

It started a little earlier with the words of political scientist Nedjib Sidi Moussa, author of the book Algerian history of Francewho strongly criticized the ideological positioning of Boualem Sansal: “There is something that bothers me a lot about this matter. […] : it turns out that Boualem Sansal has for several years fueled a hostile discourse towards immigrants, Muslims, and takes up all the themes of Éric Zemmour. It’s still shocking.” He barely recognized that this “does not justify imprisonment”.

“Absolute indecency”

Nedjib Sidi Moussa continues his indictment against the detained author: “When I see that human rights activists, anti-racist activists, intellectuals from the Parisian cultural community, present him as a man of enlightenment, who defends great causes, I am sorry but they are completely wrong. Either they are blind, or they are complicit.”

Comments which quickly provoked a reaction on the right: “A writer is arrested in Algiers for what he dared to say, and academics in Paris decide to accuse him, even though he cannot respond… Absolute indecency. The only emergency that must matter, for any French intellectual, is the release of Boualem Sansal.castigated the leader of the Republicans in the European Parliament, François-Xavier Bellamy.

The president of Reconquest, Eric Zemmour, denounced “the intellectuals of France 5” who have “Already found the charges and is starting his trial. They accuse him of taking up Zemmour’s themes.” He continues: “Worthy heirs of those who excused the gulag and criticized dissidents to the communist regime. If the great Raymond Aron were still among us, he could add a chapter to his Opium of Intellectuals: yesterday communism, today Islam.”

Roger Karoutchi, senator from Hauts-de-Seine, said “stunned to see France 5 broadcast a debate during which some are reluctant to condemn the arrest of Boualem Sansal in Algeria”. The former minister continues: “This intellectual would have been left-wing, it would have been a unanimous concert of denunciation.”

Editorialist Joseph Macé-Scaron is indignant: “What obscenity! How can we not think of Solzhenitsyn at this moment when a writer is languishing in Algerian jails? Eric Naulleau denounces “an indelible shame” and Amine El-Khatmi speaks «d’abjection» : “The public service is not content to do the bare minimum regarding Boualem Sansal! He now opens his antennae to Islamist collaborators who openly spit in his face.”

The only dissonant voice on the set, journalist Rachel Binhas (Marianne) tried to refocus the debate: “It is not a question of judging the opinion or the quality of a position taken by Boualem Sansal on Islamism or on Israel, a subject on which he is also committed, or on the borders of the ‘Algeria. It’s a question of principle: does a 75-year-old man in fragile health, who is French, have his place in a prison within an authoritarian regime? The question seems to me to be first and foremost this.she recalled.

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“Do we have the right to say a ‘but’ when we talk about the arrest of a writer? Doesn’t that pose a moral problem?” Thomas Snégarrof still inquired with Benjamin Stora. “There is a moral problem of course, but we must not not have a debate”he replied. Thomas Snégarrof then returned to an interview given by the writer in the magazine Bordersclassified on the right, which could “having set fire to the powder” with Algiers.

In the columns of this media, the writer explained, on October 2: “When France colonized Algeria, the entire western part of Algeria was part of Morocco. It’s easy to colonize small things that have no history, but to colonize a state is very difficult.” A historical vision contested by Benjamin Stora’s attacks to which Boualem Sansal will obviously not be able to respond for the moment. “Benjamin Stora and Nedjib Sidi Moussa attack Boualem Sansal at length, guilty of having ‘hurt national sentiment’ (Algerian, otherwise it was not serious). The public service launches the indictment of a French writer arrested by a dictatorship. Indecent”condemned François-Xavier Bellamy.