Statement during the plenary debate on the arbitrary conviction of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal and journalist Christophe Gleizes

Because this text you will read, I am addressing you, the leaders of Algeria.

Imprisoning an elderly, sick man whose only crime is to have written things you don’t like is, first and foremost, immoral and, quite frankly, shameful.

You must therefore release Boualem Sansal within the hour, especially since by keeping him in detention, you seem to be saying that your power and the whole of Algeria depend on a historical document on the demarcation of the borders between Morocco and Algeria by the former colonial power.

To claim that these writings could threaten Algeria’s territorial integrity is both ridiculous and demeaning to your country, which can withstand much more than a few pages of writing.

Furthermore, gentlemen, this detention is damaging Algeria’s international image more than you seem to realise. It is not only Boualem Sansal’s readers who are outraged. All European countries are wondering, without understanding, what scores you are settling, where you want to take Algeria and what allies you are seeking for it.

There is our shared history, that of the Mare Nostrum, which cannot allow you to do everything, always everything, absolutely everything, to prevent a united Maghreb from working with a united Europe for the common prosperity of our peoples.

It is human, gentlemen, to err, but diabolical to persist in the error.