Algeria

The struggle

France annexed Algeria as departments of France in 1848 and settled it, making decolonisation a war rather than a transfer. The FLN launched the revolution on 1 November 1954; eight years of guerrilla warfare, the Battle of Algiers, torture and mass internment followed, with hundreds of thousands of Algerian dead. The Evian accords and a referendum brought independence on 5 July 1962 — a date chosen to mark 132 years to the day since the French landing.

Key people

• Emir Abdelkader

  1808–1883

  Led resistance to the French conquest from 1832

• Ahmed Ben Bella

  1916–2012

  FLN founder; first president

• Djamila Bouhired

  born 1935

  FLN militant whose trial drew worldwide attention

• Frantz Fanon

  1925–1961

  Psychiatrist and theorist of the revolution