The Algerian People's Party, was a successor organization of the North African Star, led by

veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in an job, occupation or Craft, field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in the military, armed forces. A topic o ...

Algerian

nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

Messali Hadj Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj (; May 16, 1898 – June 3, 1974; commonly known as Messali Hadj, ) was an Algerian nationalist politician dedicated to the independence of his homeland from French colonial rule. He is often called the "father" of Algeria ...

. It was formed on March 11, 1937. In 1936, the Etoile Nord Africaine (ENA), its predecessor, had joined the French Front Populaire, a coalition of French leftist political parties in power at the time. The relationship lasted a bit over six months. The government formed by the Front Populaire dissolved the ENA in January 1937, hence the creation of the PPA two months later. Despite using peaceful methods of protest, the group's members were constantly pursued by the police in France and banned by French colonial authorities in Algeria. From 1938 until 1946, it operated as a clandestine organization. However, it had only moderate activities during World War II. There was also great hope that Algeria would be rewarded for its help in liberating France from the Germans, but in May 1945, the events of the Sétif and Guelma massacre ended all hopes. Early May 1945, Pierre Gazagne, secretary of the

general government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...

headed by Yves Chataigneau, took advantage of his absence to exile Messali Hadj and to arrest the leaders of the PPA.Extraits de l’entretien d’Annie Rey-Goldzeiguer avec Christian Makarian et Dominique Simonnet, publié dans l’Express du 14 mars 2002
, on the LDH website The PPA was reconstituted October 1946 under the name Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertes Democratiques (MTLD). A few ex-PPA members, having decided that freedom could only be acquired through military means, created the Organization Speciale (OS) while loosely maintaining membership in the MTLD. The OS sought the support of all the different Algerian political organizations to create the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) after launching the

Algerian War of Independence The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...

in 1954. Messali Hadj had completely lost control of the movement in a process that began more than two years earlier when he refused to compromise with the mainstream in the MTLD. In 1955, he created his own so-called resistance group, by the name of the Algerian National Movement (''Mouvement National Algérien'')(MNA). Supported by the French, it was marginalized during the eight years of war, attacked and destroyed by the FLN both in Algeria and during the " café wars" in France.

References

*'Les Origines du 1er Novembre 1954', by Benyoucef Ben Khedda. Editions Dahlab, 1989. Politics of French Algeria 1937 establishments in Algeria 1946 disestablishments in Algeria Defunct political parties in Algeria Defunct political parties in France Socialist parties in Algeria Nationalist parties in Algeria Political parties established in 1937 Political parties disestablished in 1946 {{Algeria-party-stub Sétif and Guelma massacre

See also

References