The Republicans’ Second Man: The French Are Oblivious, France is Living in Indignity

The mayor of the French city of Cannes and vice president of the right-wing Republicans party (LR), David Lisnard, revealed a division within French society regarding the case of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who is serving a five-year prison sentence in Algeria.

He strongly criticised the failure of French President Emmanuel Macron and his Foreign Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, to secure his release.

For the first time, a right-wing politician in France (Bruno Retailleau’s deputy in the leadership of the Republicans party) has acknowledged that the French consider the imprisonment of Boualem Sansal, who harmed Algeria’s territorial integrity, to be an “internal Algerian matter.” However, he insisted on being stubborn and rejected this fact, which is embodied in the laws and agreements signed between the two countries, stipulating that dual nationals are tried and punished in the country where they violated the law.

Lisnard’s opinion was published in a column in Le Figaro on Friday, September 12, 2025. He said he wanted to mark the 300th day of the controversial writer’s imprisonment. He also accused French society of being in a state of “negligence,” writing: “These 300 days are also, ultimately, days of negligence for French society. Many believe that this issue does not concern them, but rather is an internal Algerian affair. A grave mistake…” It is worth noting that Boualem Sansal did not obtain French citizenship until 2024.

For weeks, the Franco-Algerian writer disappeared from the lips of French politicians and from the columns of newspapers and TV screens of Paris. This scene raised a number of questions and even became a secondary issue amid the complexity of the political and diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Paris, with disagreements escalating to the suspension and cancellation of agreements, economic sanctions, and measures against French interests in Algeria.

The vice president of the Republicans party, allied with Macron’s camp, vented his anger at his country’s authorities, especially the President of the Elysée Palace. The mayor of Cannes spoke of the “inability of the French executive to act.”

He asked, “Did the President of the (French) Republic and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who sought to persuade us to engage in secret negotiations, try to silence us and play on our forgetfulness? The polite statements issued by the French Foreign Ministry conceal a guilty inertia. French diplomacy is closing itself in a state of systematic repentance. This perpetual sense of guilt feeds contempt.”

The mayor of Cannes described the situation France has been experiencing since the imprisonment of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal and sports journalist Christophe Gleizes, who was also convicted in a terrorism-related case, as a “shame,” referring to Algeria’s refusal to compromise on their cases. He said, “No action has been taken regarding the French journalist Christophe Gleizes… Does our diplomacy still know how to act? Until now, France has never tolerated such a disgrace, under any president or generation of intellectuals. France, heir to the Enlightenment and the homeland of Voltaire, Zola, Hugo, and Camus, has never abandoned its people in this way. France has never abandoned its identity.”
He added, “French silence and inaction are a collective disgrace. They mark the end of a certain idea of France.” This indifference prompted the launch of the “I Read Sansal” campaign, led by Arnaud Benedetti, Catherine Camus, and Noëlle Lenoir, and including courageous voices such as Georges-Marc Benamou, Pascal Bruckner, and others, to “save a little of our collective dignity”.

David Lisnard also expressed his regret at France’s inability to “impose a dialogue of partnership or a balance of power. Neither strategy nor authority.” These are terms that his leader in the Republicans party, Bruno Retailleau, frequently employs in his political speeches, which have consistently targeted Algeria, its interests, its citizens, and its diaspora, as a commercial record for narrow political and electoral considerations.