The Former DGSI Chief Escapes: The JDD Sees "the Fragility of the Regime," We See the Law

Sonia Bensalem — Paris, France — 2026-09-06

"Algeria: Tebboune's regime launches an XXL manhunt after the escape of the ex-head of the DGSI" — that is how the JDD headlined on 24 September 2025, leaving its readers to draw their own conclusions: you see, the "regime" is trembling, it is "hunting." The sober rendering of the same facts: a former senior official of the security services, pursued by the justice system of his own country, escapes; the state looks for him. In plain language, that is called judicial proceedings and an investigation. At the JDD, it is called an "XXL manhunt." Between the two formulations, there is not one extra fact: there is a bias.

The facts, as reported by the international press, fit into a few lines. The man the media identify as Nacer El Djinn, former head of the Algerian General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), had been arrested; Jeune Afrique reported his incarceration at Blida prison. In late September 2025, his escape was reported, with several outlets — Middle East Eye, El Confidencial — claiming that he had reached Spain by sea. The Algerian authorities launched their search. Full stop. No political trial, no mysterious disappearance, no mass grave: an escape, an investigation, and an institution that keeps on functioning.

For it must be said plainly, for those whom the word "manhunt" amuses: when a state pursues a former head of its own services, that is a sign that the law applies at the top — not that it is collapsing. A former intelligence chief answering for his actions before his own country's courts is the ordinary functioning of a state; powerlessness in the face of the once-powerful — that would be the real news. But the JDD does not subscribe to that kind of news: impunity there never makes the front page.

The double standard is measured, moreover, in the very same place: France. On 12 March 2025, Le Figaro headlined that a Bercy civil servant and an employee of the French immigration office were "suspected of spying for Algeria"; a formal investigation followed, reported notably by France Info. No one, that day, spoke of an "XXL manhunt" against the French state; no one concluded that the Republic was "fragile." French justice pursues its own: that is the law. Algerian justice pursues its own: in the JDD's eyes, that is proof that the "regime" is tottering. Same facts, two readings — only the label on the defendant changes.

The narrative, moreover, found its regional chorus as early as the very next day. The Moroccan press feasted: "General 'Nasser El Djinn' flees to Spain aboard a boat of harragas," H24info sneered; "once upon a time, a general turned harrag," L'ODJ piled on — while specialist websites, for their part, predicted the "tottering" of Algerian power. One may smile at the pantomime; one may also ask questions. When a case of Algerian domestic law becomes, within twenty-four hours, proof of "fragility" in a French newspaper, what is the function of the headline? To inform — or to wage an image war that is not its own?

A year on, what has the sequence demonstrated? That a procedure is running its course — and that nothing in an escape and a search deserves to be read as the death throes of a state. Algeria did not totter: it investigated. Arrest, detention, escape, search: that is exactly the sequence that any self-respecting state goes through, from Algiers to Paris, from Rabat to Madrid. The difference is that only one of these capitals sees its judicial procedures turned into a serialised drama by a press with no particular affection for Algeria.

"Fragility of the regime," you write? We read the opposite: a state whose justice system dares to take on a former head of its services is a state that applies its law — to everyone, including the mighty of yesterday. France does it with its own agents; Algeria does it with its own; that is the rule of law. The day French justice launches a search after the escape of a former senior figure of its own services — France has its own cases, and its own history with them — we will expect the same fervour from the JDD's vocabulary. Is an "XXL manhunt of the Republic" on its way? We will not hold our breath. In the meantime, we file this piece under "law" — not under "regime."