Boualem Sansal’s news is rare. This Tuesday morning, the French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot explained on Sud Radio that the Franco-Algerian writer, detained in Algeria, “left the hospital a few days ago and returned to prison in the prison where he is detained, in the vicinity of Algiers ”.
The minister added that he was “very concerned about his health” because the writer is “sick”. “He is in contact with his wife who sees him once a week, married with which we are in contact, as well as with his lawyers. And that’s how we have her news, “he continued.
Asked about his proposal to go to Algiers to chat with the Algerian authorities, formulated a few days ago, Jean-Noël Barrot replied: “I said that I was ready when they come to take all the Subjects and dimensions of our relationship, which I wish to see each other because it is the only way to render service to the Algerian people and the French people ”. He also hoped “that a decision could be made as quickly as possible by the Algerian justice” about Boualem Sansal.
Critique of Algerian power, the 75 -year -old writer is prosecuted under article 87 bis of the Algerian penal code which sanctions “as a terrorist or subversive act, any act aimed at the security of the State, the integrity of the territory, stability and normal functioning of institutions ”. He has been detained since November 16. He is criticized for his declarations on the Moroccan border. In an interview with the Frontières media in early October, Sansal explained that, in the time of French colonization, the Cherifian kingdom had been dispossessed of part of its land for the benefit of the future Algeria. ” He faces a very heavy prison sentence.
The writer at the heart of a diplomatic crisis between France and Algeria
French President Emmanuel Macron called for his release and tried in early January that Algeria “dishoners himself to prevent a man seriously ill from being treated”. In response, Algeria had described these words as “shameless and unacceptable interference in an internal Algerian case”. The writer has been in the viewfinder of the Algerian authorities for a long time because of his systematic criticism of power. “Algeria is a dictatorship of Islamism, a terrible fundamentalism,” he said on Arte last January.
The fact remains that his arrest also comes in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between France and Algeria about Western Sahara. In July, Emmanuel Macron recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara.
In France, the world of letters continues to mobilize to provide support to the writer. The academician Jean-Christophe Rufin, very close to Sansal, had proposed that he was automatically appointed among the 40 “Immortals” of the Quai Conti, where several armchairs are vacant. “The French Academy has twice crowned the author, she cannot turn her head when he finds herself in difficulty,” pleaded Jean-Christophe Ruffin.
The European Parliament also seized the case by voting for the release of the Franco-Algerian writer. However, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, denounced last Friday on CNews the vote of MEP LFI Rima Hassan against this European resolution calling for the release of the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal. “By voting against the resolution for the release of Boualem Sansal which also provided for a medical mission to assess his state of health, Rima Hassan sank into unworthiness. Unworthy which reflects on rebellious France which made it elect and which is silent in front of this infamy, “he had already said on x.
For his part, Rima Hassan had justified his choice by saying: “Do not vote for this text is not to oppose the liberation of Boualem Sansal, not to vote this text is to oppose the instrumentalization which is made of his case. We remain of course attentive to human rights in Algeria as in the rest of the world, “she said on the social network X.