After his pardon in November 2025, the Algerian-French author is calling for his imprisonment to be examined under international law and is breaking with long-time companions in order to increase the pressure on the political leadership in Algiers.
Paris – The embattled Algerian-French writer Boualem Sansal has announced that he wants to bring Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune before an international court. This development marks a new level of escalation in the conflict between the 81-year-old writer and the Algerian government, which has been simmering since the end of 2024. As the AFP news agency and the Le360 and Le Monde portals report, Sansal justifies this step with what he sees as the unlawful nature of his previous prison sentence and the lack of constitutional standards during his trial.
International justice as the goal of the legal process
During a panel on April 11, 2026 in the French National Assembly, Sansal publicly stated: “The legal process has begun.” According to reports from Le Monde and Le360, his legal team is currently preparing a lawsuit aimed at bringing the Algerian president before international bodies – namely the International Criminal Court.
Sansal, who was sentenced to five years in prison in March 2025 for his critical stance towards the Algerian system, accuses the leadership in Algiers of arbitrarily detaining him on charges such as “terrorism”, “espionage” and “attack on state security”. According to Sansal, he had already decided to take legal action against those responsible while he was in prison. In the National Assembly he quoted from a letter that he claimed to have addressed to the president from prison: “If you release me, I will sue you.”
The rejection of the pardon as a diplomatic compromise
A central aspect of the current dispute is Sansal’s dissatisfaction with the circumstances of his release in November 2025. Although he was released through a presidential pardon – presumably as a result of massive international pressure – he rejects this act of leniency as « deeply unsatisfactory ». The author emphasized to Le Monde that a pardon does not constitute an acquittal and that the underlying conviction remains legally valid.
He criticizes the fact that he was denied a “real trial with lawyers and international observers”. For Sansal, the legal investigation is therefore not a private campaign of revenge, but an act of resistance against a regime that, according to Le360, he characterizes as “violent and cruel”. With the lawsuit he also wants to set an example for other imprisoned people, such as the sports journalist Christophe Gleizes, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence in Algeria.
Strategic realignment and break with the Gallimard publishing house
The writer’s determination recently led to a break with his long-standing Paris publisher Gallimard. In a Tribune published in Le Monde in March 2026, Sansal justified his move to the Grasset publishing house with a “difference of opinion” over the defense strategy during his imprisonment. While Gallimard increasingly relied on diplomatic channels to secure his release, Sansal insisted on a more confrontational line towards the Algerian leadership.
This change of publisher is also interpreted politically in industry circles, as Grasset belongs to the Hachette Group, which is under the influence of the conservative entrepreneur Vincent Bolloré. Sansal apparently sees this new partnership as a better platform for his political activism, which will now extend beyond literature into the courtroom. It remains to be seen whether a lawsuit against a sitting head of state will actually be admissible in international courts, but this process already represents a novelty for the political debate in the Maghreb region.
Algeria – President Tebboune pardons writer Boualem Sansal at the request of Federal President Steinmeier
Source:
maghreb-post.de
