The French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, 75, was detained on Saturday, November 16 at the Algiers airport, coming from France, as confirmed on Friday, November 22 by the Algérie Presse Service press agency, dependent on the Algerian Ministry of Information. . This confirmation comes after several days of concern.
• Arrested in Algiers
On Friday, the press agency under the Algerian Ministry of Information, Algérie Presse Service, published an article reporting that Boualem Sansal had been detained at Algiers airport on Saturday, November 16, almost a week ago.
“The arrest of Boualem Sansal, a pseudo-intellectual revered by the French extreme right, has aroused the indignation of professionals,” the agency writes on its website.
Little is known about this arrest, other than that the perpetrator had just arrived from France. The reasons for his arrest are unknown.
• 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 that they claimed to have had “no news” of him since his arrival in Algiers.
Several French media reported since Thursday that Boualem Sansal had been detained in Algeria, without this having been previously confirmed.
His arrest comes at a time when diplomatic relations are particularly tense between France and Algeria, since Paris said last July that it supported the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara, a hotly disputed territory.
• A writer with positions that are debated.
Although no reason has been officially given for his arrest, the newspaper Le Monde suggests that the statements of the writer, naturalized French in 2024, may have irritated the Algerian authorities. In the columns of the media outlet Frontières, considered far-right, Boualem Sansal had in fact defended the Moroccan position according to which the country’s territory would have been truncated under French colonization for the benefit of Algeria. However, according to Le Monde, this would be a “red line” for Algiers.
Furthermore, the writer, who declares himself an atheist, periodically takes a position against Islamism, warning France and, in general, Europe about this issue. These statements earned him both praise from various right-wing and far-right figures and criticism from the left and Algeria. Boualem Salam defends himself against any Islamophobia.
“What I have continued to denounce is the instrumentalization of Islam for political and social purposes,” he told Agence France Presse in 2017.
Committed, he participated in Algiers in 2019 in the demonstrations that led to the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He was also criticized in Algeria for having gone to Israel in 2014 to receive a literary award.
• His publisher requests his “immediate release”
Gallimard, Boualem Sansal’s publishing house, called on Friday for his “immediate release”, expressing at the same time its “deep concern” for its author, following the announcement of his arrest.
Several Algerian authors also reacted. The 2024 Goncourt laureate, Kamel Daoud, denounced that his “brother” is “behind bars, like all of Algeria”, while Yasmina Khadra denounced to AFP an arrest that “unbearable” her.
The day before, on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron said he was “very concerned” about the disappearance of the Franco-Algerian, although his arrest had not yet been confirmed. “The President of the Republic expresses his unwavering adherence to the freedom of a great writer and intellectual,” stated the Elysée.
Source: BFM TV
