Overview

• Boualem Bensaïd was convicted in 2002 for coordinating six 1995 RER bombings, including the July 25 attack at Saint-Michel that killed eight and wounded 150, and received a life sentence with a 22-year security period.
• All four of his parole requests since 2017 were denied and his final appeal was rejected by the Court of Cassation in May 2025.
• The penalties application chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal granted his first conditional release in a July 10 ruling, overturning decades of refusals.
• The expulsion order mandates his immediate departure from France upon release and prohibits any return to French territory.
• The decision reflects a new policy linking the conditional release of foreign-national inmates to expulsion as a response to chronic prison overcrowding under a March 2025 directive.