The concerns about his reported arrest come as another prominent French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud is under attack over his novel Houris, which won France's top literary prize, the Goncourt. A woman has claimed the book was based on her story of surviving 1990s Islamist massacres and used without her consent.

President Macron joins calls for information about Franco-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal, missing in Algiers.

Alarm grew in France on Friday over the fate of a prominent French-Algerian novelist detained in the country of his birth, with his publisher urging his immediate release and President

France says it's "very concerned" about the disappearance of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who has not been heard from since he was reportedly taken into police custody upon his arrival in Algeria on Saturday.