Algerian court clears path to free French journalist
Algeria’s Supreme Court has wrapped up the legal proceedings against jailed French journalist Christophe Gleizes, according to an article by the French newspaper Liberation, published on June 3rd.
His fate now rests entirely with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who holds the sole remaining power to grant a pardon.
On May 25th, the court acknowledged Gleizes’s earlier decision to drop his own appeal. It also threw out the prosecution’s counter-appeal.
That counter-appeal was the last procedural obstacle between him and any possible presidential clemency. His lawyers, Amirouche Bakouri and Emmanuel Daoud, confirmed in a joint statement that the judicial phase is now over.
Gleizes is a French sports journalist. He was arrested in May 2024 in the Kabylie region while reporting on JS Kabylie, one of Algeria’s most storied football clubs.
In June 2025, he was convicted on charges of “apology for terrorism” and handed a seven-year sentence. An appeals court upheld that sentence six months later.
In March 2026, he withdrew his cassation appeal himself. It was a calculated move, aimed at clearing the path to a political solution. The problem was that the prosecutor general had filed a counter-appeal of its own, and that still had to run its course.
The timing of the ruling is unlikely to be coincidental. French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin visited Algeria in May and spoke directly with Tebboune about the case.
Relations between Paris and Algiers have quietly improved in recent months, with diplomatic pressure over Gleizes building steadily in the background.
That pressure has sharpened with the World Cup now days away. The tournament opens June 11th across the US, Mexico, and Canada.
Thibaut Bruttin, the Director General of Reporters Without Borders and chair of Gleizes’s support committee, described the Supreme Court ruling as the only real way out of what he called a humanitarian crisis.
Bruttin has stated that he wants Gleizes home and back in his press seat before the World Cup’s opening whistle.
Libération and agencies, Maghrebi.org
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