An Algerian court sentenced Boualem Sansal, the 80-year-old French-Algerian novelist, to five years in prison on Thursday for remarks made about Morocco that officials say insulted Algeria’s territorial pride. His crime, according to state prosecutors: suggesting France’s colonial era left Algeria with land that rightfully belonged to Morocco, including the disputed Western Sahara. Sansal, who was arrested in November 2024 at Algiers’ international airport, has been detained ever since. He is currently battling cancer.
Who Is Boualem Sansal?
Born in 1949, Boualem Sansal is one of Algeria’s most fearless literary voices. Once a government technocrat, he turned to fiction after the country’s brutal civil war in the 1990s. His 2015 novel 2084: The End of the World, a dystopian Orwell-inspired take on religious totalitarianism, earned France’s Grand Prix du Roman. Sansal’s views—sharply critical of Algeria’s authoritarian system and political Islam—have long made him controversial at home. In 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron granted him dual citizenship, a symbolic nod to his prominence. That same year, he became a favorite of the French far-right. Marine Le Pen called him a “fighter for liberty,”. Now frail and undergoing cancer treatment, Sansal’s imprisonment has moved writers, politicians, and activists across the globe. His lawyer, François Zimeray in Paris, alongside an unnamed counsel in Algiers, are leading his defense. Literary icons like Wole Soyinka and Salman Rushdie have joined calls for his release.
What Happened? A Comment Sparks a Sentence
The case traces back to a 2024 interview with Frontières, a far-right French magazine. In it, Sansal suggested that colonial France gave Algeria too much land, and claimed that Western Sahara historically belonged to Morocco. To Algiers, that was too far. When Sansal flew from Paris to Algiers on November 16, 2024, he was arrested at Houari Boumediene Airport and charged under Article 87 bis of Algeria’s Penal Code: “undermining national unity and territorial integrity.” Prosecutors initially sought a 10-year sentence. During his trial at Dar El Beida court near Algiers last week, Sansal remained defiant. “I expressed an opinion,” he told the court. “There was no intent to harm Algeria,”. On March 27, the court delivered its ruling: five years in prison and a 500,000-dinar fine (around $3,730 USD), per an AFP journalist present. Sansal, visibly weakened, remained composed—walking up to the bench to correct a translation from Arabic to French, according to Le Monde.
Timeline: From Interview to Sentence
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Late 2024: Interview published in Frontières, exact date unconfirmed
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November 16, 2024: Arrested at Algiers airport upon arrival from Paris
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December 2024: Hospitalized for cancer-related care while detained
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Week of March 17–23, 2025: Prosecutors request 10-year sentence
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March 27, 2025: Verdict delivered
Held in Kolea prison and briefly transferred to Mustapha Hospital due to his health, Sansal’s case has played out within a broader diplomatic crisis simmering between Algiers and Paris.
The flashpoint here isn’t just a novel or an opinion—it’s Western Sahara, the region at the center of a frozen conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front, which Algeria supports. Morocco claims the region as its own; Algeria backs its independence. A 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire stalled peace talks, and tensions have only worsened. When Macron backed Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in July 2024, Algeria recalled its ambassador to Paris. Sansal’s pro-Morocco take—delivered to a far-right French outlet—only deepened the rift. Algerian state media accused French hardliners of weaponizing voices like Sansal’s to provoke Algiers. But his defenders argue the case is a clear-cut violation of free expression. “This is arbitrary detention,” Macron said Thursday, via France 24. PEN America’s Karin Karlekar put it more bluntly: “Writers don’t belong behind bars,” she said in a March 25 statement.
Sansal’s lawyer in Algiers has appealed directly to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, citing the writer’s age and cancer diagnosis. “This is not just a legal issue—it’s a humanitarian one,” he told BBC News. Macron said he’s been tracking the case since November and trusts Tebboune’s “clarity.” But there’s no sign of intervention yet. On March 25, 25 French parliamentarians protested in Paris in support of Sansal. Literary legends like Soyinka, Rushdie, and Adonis have joined in a global appeal launched by PEN and Le Monde. Algeria, meanwhile, is holding its line. President Tebboune stated last weekend that the matter is “in good hands,” and local media reflects mixed sentiment. Sansal’s health is now the wildcard. Multiple hospitalizations since his arrest raise fears that five years behind bars could prove fatal, Barlaman Today warns.