After three months spent in silence to try to calm the anger of the Algerian government, the parents of Christophe Gleizes are relaunching a media campaign to demand the release of the 37-year-old sports journalist. “Christophe is solid, he is holding on thanks to all the expressions of solidarity and mobilization,” thanked his mother, Sylvie Godard, at the microphone of France Info this Thursday, October 15.
One message of support in particular gave strength to his son, that of Zinédine Zidane. During his first press conference as the new coach of the France team on July 28, the legendary midfielder of Algerian origin soberly showed his support: “I am a parent and I just want him to go home to see his family.”
This highly anticipated speech conferred a new status on the journalist within Koléa prison, where he has been detained since June 29, 2025, west of Algiers. “He is considered a hero, I dare not say legend, by all his fellow prisoners – there are around 8,000 prisoners,” explained Sylvie Godard, who was able to visit her son ten days ago. “It’s incredible, he couldn’t believe it,” she added.
“He feels indebted”
Christophe Gleizes has been imprisoned in Algeria for 473 days, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison for “apology of terrorism” and “possession of publications for the purpose of propaganda harming the national interest”. The Algerian authorities mainly accuse him of having been in contact, as part of a report for the magazines So Foot and Society, with a sports manager linked to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), an independence organization classified as terrorist by Algiers since 2021.
Since then, the journalist's parents have been fighting to obtain his release. Haunted by the fear that her son would remain imprisoned for seven years, Sylvie Godard declared that it was “important that people continue to talk about him, otherwise he will be forgotten”. “Christophe feels strong because he wants to live up to all the people who support him. He feels indebted,” she explained with emotion.
The journalist's father-in-law, Francis Godard, welcomed the decision of the Paris town hall to award Christophe Gleizes the medal of honorary citizen of the capital. “It was a great moment because the vote was unanimous, I was very moved,” he said, adding that the elected officials of the town hall of Agen had also conferred the status of honorary citizen on his son-in-law, as had the regional council of Île-de-France. “We would like French local authorities to contact Algerian local authorities,” he said.
Algerian anger
The family of Christophe Gleizes, supported by Reporters Without Borders, deplores that the journalist's fate depends on diplomatic relations between France and Algeria. If Sylvie and Francis Godard remained silent this summer, it is because the Algerian government was allegedly “angry” after their trip to New York during the Football World Cup. “We went there to question Abdelmadjid Tebboune,” explained the father-in-law.
Gianni Infantino's position also fueled Algerian anger, according to the family. The president of Fifa spoke on the sidelines of the World Cup which took place in the United States last summer, deploring that Christophe Gleizes was “the only sports journalist in the world to be imprisoned”.
But tired of this endless “diplomatic soap opera”, the family of Christophe Gleizes has chosen to return to the campaign with a series of mobilizations to come. A charity match should notably be organized in November to mark 500 days of his incarceration, indicated Thibaut Bruttin, the general director of Reporters sans Frontières, also invited on France Info.
“Today, we are changing gears. Patience, silence, noise, all that didn't work. It is important to tell Algeria that the campaign is resuming. We are under the pedal,” he firmly declared. He was also indignant that Christophe Gleizes was “treated like a common law prisoner”, he therefore invites us to “ask the question of knowing now if he is not a state hostage”. And the parents of Christophe Gleizes conclude: “We will never give up the fight to free Christophe.”
