FRONT DE LIBéRATION NATIONALE (FLN)

The organizing group behind the Algerian War of Independence; later became the dominant single party of independent Algeria.

The instigators of the Algerian revolution created the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN; National Liberation Front) in October 1954 as a vehicle for mobilizing Algerians behind the war of independence. As the war went on, the movement spun off various deliberative, executive, and military institutions, creating by September 1958 a Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic. By January 1960 the revolutionary parliament—Conseil National de la Revolution Algerienne (CNRA)—declared the FLN a single party responsible for carrying out a deeper social and economic revolution.

The Algerian constitutions of 1963 and 1976 confirmed this decision, declaring the FLN the people's monitor of government and the avant-garde of the revolution. By the late 1970s, however, it had grown into a bureaucratized organization of more than 300,000 members, whose principal function was the recruitment and indoctrination of members for support of the government it ostensibly monitored.

The constitution of February 1989 ended the FLN's single-party status, but before newer parties could unseat it, the army seized control of the government.

See also Algerian War of Independence; Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne (CNRA).

Bibliography

Entelis, John. Algeria: The Revolution Institutionalized. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986.

John Ruedy

Front de Libération nationale (FLN) Algerian radical Muslim independence movement. It was formed in 1954 as the political expression of the ALN (Armée de Libération Nationale) when the Algerian war of independence broke out. In spite of differences of opinion between military, political, and religious leaders, the movement hung together, and brought its military leader, BEN BELLA, to power successfully as the first President of Algeria in 1962 following President de Gaulle's successful national referenda on the ÉVIAN AGREEMENT. The principal policies of the party were independence, economic development in a socialist state, non-alignment, and brotherly relations with other Arab states. In 1989 Algeria's constitution was amended so that other political parties were legalized, but the FLN continued to hold all the seats in the National Assembly.