The Franco-Algerio Boalem Sansal writer opposes his appointment for the Sakharov 2025 Award for the Extreme Right group in the European Parliament chaired by Jordan Bardella (RN), said his Gallimard editor this Monday, September 15.
The group “Patriotes for Europe” (PFE), which has 85 Eurodiputados, has proposed the name of the writer, imprisoned since November 16, 2024 in Algeria, for the European Annual Prize “for the freedom of the spirit”.
“Despite the great esteem in which he has this price, Boalem Sansal, on his wife’s path, said he considered this approach to insidious supporters,” said Antoine Gallimard in a press release.
The writer sentenced to 5 years in prison
“The continuous commitment of Boalem Sansal in favor of peace and freedom does not justify in any case that, in its absence, we associate its name and its writings with the objectives of a movement whose political radicality is oblivious to the spirit of tolerance that has always promoted,” he added.
The editor said that “if this ‘forced’ candidacy was retained, the writer’s representatives in France rejected this Sakharov Award.” At 80 and sick, Boalem Sansal was sentenced to 5 years in prison, particularly for “damages to the national unit.”
The novelist and essayist was sentenced in particular by statements in October 2024 to the borders of the extreme French right, where he estimated that Algeria had inherited under the French colonization of territories belonging to Morocco so far.
A “Pacific” rally on Wednesday in Paris
Several novelists, including Paule Constant, Kamel Daud and the Nobel Prize for Literature JMG Le Clézio, participated in a support meeting this weekend at the Nancy Book Festival.
A “group of citizens” asked for a “peaceful” demonstration on Wednesday night in Paris. An adaptation of his novel “The Village of German” will also play at night in a Parisian theater.
In August, Emmanuel Macron said that France should act “with more firmness and determination” against Algeria, evoking the “fate reserved” in Boalem Sansal and Christopheizes, French journalist imprisoned in Tizi Ouzou.
Source: BFM TV
