German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier this Monday (10 November 2025) called for the release of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, offering to host him in the Central European country, one year after his imprisonment and eight months after he was sentenced to five years in prison in Algeria for attacks on national unity and the economy, possession of videos and publications of a subversive nature, and crimes against constitutional bodies.
Steinmeier asked Algerian Abdelmadjid Tebboune for “humanitarian action” against the author, the statement said. A presidential memo released on the same day stated, “Given Mr. Sansar’s advanced age and fragile health, the Federal President has offered Mr. Sansar’s departure to Germany and subsequent treatment in our country.”
Steinmeier said he asked for Tebboune’s pardon because of their long personal relationship and the good relations between the two countries. The federal president added that pardoning Mr. Sansar would be an expression of humanitarian spirit and political vision. Paris also called on Algeria to show leniency over Sansal’s conviction, which has further strained already difficult Franco-Algerian relations.
controversial statement
Sansal, who became a naturalized French citizen in 2024, was awarded the German Booksellers Peace Prize in 2011, and the German chapter of the International PEN Club has also recently called for his release. The author of The Oath of the Barbarians (1999) was arrested at Algiers airport in November 2024 after telling French far-right media: frontierissues the border between Algeria and Morocco.
In it, Sansal pointed out that France illegally transferred Moroccan territory to Algeria during the colonial period from 1830 to 1962, which Algeria considers a challenge to its sovereignty, consistent with Morocco’s long-standing territorial claims.
In July, Algeria’s Court of Appeal confirmed the five-year prison sentence for Sansal, an 80-year-old man with prostate cancer. Sansal, known in France for his views against Islamism and the Algerian authorities, won the French Academy’s Grand Prix for Novel, as well as the Premier Romance and the Tropical Prize for his first novel.
DZC (EFE, AFP)
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