She appeals to the Algerian authorities. The mother of French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes, sentenced on appeal in early December in Algeria to seven years in prison, sent a request for pardon to Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, according to a letter dated December 10 consulted this Monday by AFP.
“I respectfully ask you to consider pardoning Christophe, so that he can regain his freedom and his family,” writes Sylvie Godard in this missive, ensuring that she appeals to the “high benevolence” of the Algerian president. “We call on President Tebboune to make a gesture of humanity,” she continued to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
A conviction for “apology of terrorism”
The 36-year-old journalist has also filed an appeal to obtain a new trial, his lawyers announced this Sunday. Collaborator for the French magazines So Foot and Society, Christophe Gleizes was arrested on May 28, 2024 in Algeria. He went there for a report on the country’s most successful football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK), based in Tizi-Ouzou, 100 km east of Algiers.
On December 3, 2025, the Tizi-Ouzou Court of Appeal confirmed his sentence to seven years in prison for “apology of terrorism”. Algerian justice accuses him of contacts with people linked to the separatist movement MAK (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie), classified as terrorist in Algeria.
“The confirmation of the sentence to seven years in prison was for Christophe, as for me and my family, an immense shock,” indicates Sylvie Godard in her letter to the Algerian head of state, which she says she writes “with gravity and deep emotion”. “This sentence is incomprehensible to us given the facts and my son’s journey,” she explains. “Nowhere in any of his writings will you find any trace of anything hostile to Algeria and its people.”
Ending a “serious injustice”
In a press release published this Monday, the association Reporters Without Borders (RSF) supports this request for pardon in order to put an end to a “serious injustice”. “We are now calling on the Algerian authorities to quickly take the only possible decision in this matter: to release Christophe,” explains Thibaut Bruttin, general director of the association, quoted in the press release.
The first conviction of Christophe Gleizes in June 2025 was pronounced at the height of a serious diplomatic crisis between France and Algeria. But bilateral relations seemed to be easing after the granting of a pardon and the release by Algiers of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal on November 12.
