Jailed for doing his job: French journalist Christophe Gleizes sentenced to 7 years in prison in Algeria

information fournie par So Foot •02/07/2025 à 14:38

Journalist Christophe Gleizes, a contributor to So Foot and Society french magazines, who was arrested during a report in Tizi Ouzou in May 2024, has just been sentenced to seven years in prison in Algeria. An unfair decision that outrages his family, friends and colleagues. Portrait.

It’s a scene any So Foot or Society journalist could have witnessed between 2013 and 2024. Christophe arriving at the office at 3:30 p.m., pointy shoes on his feet, all-weather down jacket – because there’s no season with him -, cigarette in his mouth, debonair, cheerful smile, with a bold proposal: « Hey my quiche! Would you like to go to Scotland with me? I’ve got a great idea for a subject. A story about dogs committing suicide from a bridge near Glasgow, sounds crazy! » Naturally, in the spring of 2015, his interlocutor agreed to follow him on this astonishing adventure, which, as is often the case, began with a short night in his little apartment in the 12th district) of Paris before taking an early morning flight.

Then, out in the field, in impeccable English, Christophe has no equal for wandering around on the trail of the right character to interview, the right scene to describe, opening doors, making encounters and unblocking situations that seem compromised thanks to his glibness, kindness and empathy. In Sean Connery’s homeland, this involved convincing women grieving the loss of their dog to come forward after having been mocked by British tabloid journalists a few years earlier, while unravelling a dark tale of a haunted manor house and a bridge that had been under a curse for two centuries. The six-page feature was published in an issue of Society in summer 2015 and traces what is still, alongside the Loch Ness Monster, Scotland’s other “great mystery”.…

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