National Liberation Front (Algeria) - Anticolonial Struggle

Anticolonial Struggle

The FLN is a continuation of the main revolutionary body that directed the war for independence against France. It was created by the Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action (CRUA) and emergent paramilitary networks continuing the nationalist tradition of the Algerian People's Party (APsP). The RCUA urged all the warring factions of the nationalist movement to unite and fight against France. By 1956 - two years into the war - nearly all the nationalist organizations in Algeria had joined the FLN, which had established itself as the main nationalist group through both co-opting and coercing smaller organizations. The most important group that remained outside the FLN was Messali Hadj's Mouvement national algérien (MNA). At this time the FLN reorganized into something like a provisional government. It consisted of a five-man executive and legislative body, and was organized territorially into six wilayas, following the Ottoman-era administrative boundaries.

The FLN's armed wing during the war was called the Armée de Libération nationale (ALN). It was divided into guerrilla units fighting France and the MNA in Algeria (and wrestling with Messali's followers over control of the expatriate community, in the so-called "café wars" in France), and another, stronger component more resembling a traditional army. These units were based in neighbouring Arab countries (notably in Oujda in Morocco, and Tunisia), and although they infiltrated forces and ran weapons and supplies across the border, they generally saw less action than the rural guerrilla forces. These units were later to emerge under the leadership of army commander Col. Houari Boumédiène as a powerful opposition to the political cadres of the FLN's exile government, the GPRA, and they eventually came to dominate Algerian politics.