Boualem Sansal has rejected a nomination for the Sakharov Prize by the far-right group Patriots for Europe. The Algerian writer, currently imprisoned, denounces a political move he says goes against his values.
Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal has opposed his nomination for the 2025 Sakharov Prize by the far-right group in the European Parliament led by Jordan Bardella (RN), his publisher Gallimard confirmed on Monday.
The group Patriots for Europe (PfE), which has 85 members of the European Parliament, put forward Sansal’s name for the annual award “for freedom of thought.” Sansal has been imprisoned in Algeria since November 16, 2024.
“While he holds this prize in very high regard, Boualem Sansal, through his wife, has made it clear that he considers this insidiously partisan move unacceptable,” Antoine Gallimard said in a statement.
“Boualem Sansal’s lifelong commitment to peace and freedom does not in any way justify associating his name and his work with the aims of a movement whose political radicalism is completely at odds with the spirit of tolerance he has always promoted,” Gallimard added.
The publisher stated that “if this forced ‘nomination’ were to be upheld, the Sakharov Prize would be declined by the author’s representatives in France.”
Eighty years old and in poor health, Boualem Sansal was sentenced to five years in prison, notably for “undermining national unity.”
The novelist and essayist was convicted for remarks made in October 2024 to the French far-right media outlet Frontières, where he claimed that under French colonization, Algeria inherited territories that had previously belonged to Morocco.
Several writers, including Paule Constant, Kamel Daoud, and Nobel Prize winner JMG Le Clézio, joined a support rally this past weekend at the Nancy Book Festival.
A “citizens’ collective” has called for a “peaceful” gathering in Paris on Wednesday evening. That same night, a stage adaptation of his novel Le village de l'Allemand will be performed in a Paris theater.
In August, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that France must act “with greater firmness and determination” toward Algeria, referencing the “fate” of Boualem Sansal and Christophe Gleizes, a French journalist imprisoned in Tizi Ouzou.
By Fanny LATTACH / AFP
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