MADRID Jan. 7 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Algerian Government has denounced a “blatant and unacceptable” interference in Algerian internal affairs by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who on Monday again criticized the arrest of the writer Boualem Sansal, the subject of political disputes between both countries during these last months.
Macron urged Algerian authorities on Monday to release Sansal and stated that his detention “dishonors” the Maghreb country. The Franco-Algerian writer was arrested in November, accused of attacking state security after questioning the current territory of Algeria.
The Algerian Foreign Ministry has reacted “with great surprise” to Macron’s words, “which disgrace, above all, the one who uttered them so lightly.” For Algiers, “these statements can only be disapproved, rejected and condemned for what they are, a blatant and unacceptable interference in an internal Algerian matter.”
“What the French president improperly and falsely presents as an issue of freedom of expression is not such under the law of a sovereign and independent State,” the Ministry lamented. It is, he added, “a challenge to the territorial integrity of the country, a crime punishable under Algerian laws.”
The Sansal case symbolizes the bad relations between Paris and Algiers, despite the fact that both parties tried in 2022 to strengthen ties with a new roadmap. The recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in mid-2024 once again moved this reconciliation away.
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