Its over for me: French

On Saturday at the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium, the writer did not hide his desire to leave France. He denounces the campaigns of denigration that targeted him in recent weeks.

Will Boualem Sansal leave France? As he officially joins the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature in Brussels this Saturday, Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal is considering leaving Paris.

“France is finished for me. I have a few more months to spend in this country. Then, I’m out,” declared Boualem Sansal the day before his induction into the Royal Academy of Belgium. This Saturday, speaking to Le Figaro, he clarifies his intentions. “Why stay in France with all these attacks that I suffer morning and evening?” he questions.

“These are insults, no longer criticism. Criticism I can handle, I spend my days critiquing, but now it has escalated to insults,” he asserts. The writer blames “a handful of thought oligarchs” who he accuses of targeting his freedom. “I will leave. I will go to Switzerland, Belgium… From there, I will continue to criticize all day long.”

“I need to escape,” he declares. “They are portraying me as a criminal, I need to escape. It’s worse than dictatorship in Algeria. They are exerting a dictatorship of thought on me because they want to silence me. They want to scare me,” adds Boualem Sansal. The writer denounces the denigration campaigns that have targeted him in recent weeks.

“The French are lovely. It seems like I have almost unanimous support. In the street, in any place, old people, young people, even children, adolescents come to me and say thank you. However, it’s the problem of a handful of thought oligarchs, small desk dictators,” acknowledges Boualem Sansal.

The writer was naturalized as French in 2024 by Emmanuel Macron. He was incarcerated in Algeria for a year due to his stance on his native country, before being released in November 2025. He was granted clemency by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, responding to a request from German authorities, and eventually returned to France, where he has published most of his novels and has lived for about twenty years.

The octogenarian is currently receiving medical treatment in the Paris region for several serious conditions. However, “I hate Paris, I don’t think I will stay in France,” he notes.

The release of “La Légende,” a book in which he recounts his detention, is scheduled for June 2, according to Grasset. On Friday, speaking to AFP, Boualem Sansal hinted that he addresses his dispute with Gallimard in the book, due to divergent strategies during his imprisonment. He wished to be defended as a resistant, a “free man,” he asserts. “I am not a commodity whose skin is negotiable.”