France condemns the seven-year jail term given to a French journalist in Algeria
The French government criticized an Algerian court on Wednesday for upholding Christophe Gleizes’ seven-year prison sentence, even though the French government had tried to get the Algerian government to change the ruling.
It’s too bad that the explanations given by his defense team and its full cooperation with the Algerian officials were not enough to change the verdict. It is our wish that he is freed and that he can quickly be with his family again, the French foreign office said in a statement.
“France reiterates its commitment to freedom of the press throughout the world,” the statement stated.
France officially recognized Morocco’s control over the disputed region of Western Sahara, which made things very bad between Paris and Algiers. The situations with Gleizes and Boualem Sansal, a French-Algerian writer who was also given a long prison sentence, have made things worse. Algiers’ failure to take back people who were sent away by French authorities also made things difficult between the two countries.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune did forgive Sansal last month, though.
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), a French group that fights for press freedom, said that Gleizes was arrested in May 2024 in Tizi Ouzou, 100 kilometers east of Algiers, while working on a story about sports in the Kabylia area.
RSF said that a local court found him guilty of “glorifying terrorism” in June. The decision was upheld on Wednesday, according to the Foreign Ministry.
