Algerian War of Independence
The CRUA re-emerged as the Front de libération nationale, or FLN, which began a nation-wide armed insurrection against France on November 1, 1954. Boudiaf was by this time a main leader of the movement, and emerged as an important member of the exiled leadership working from Cairo and Algeria's neighbouring countries. In 1956, he was captured along with Ahmed Ben Bella and several other FLN leaders in a controversial aircraft hijacking by French forces, and imprisoned in France. While prisoner, he was symbolically elected minister in the FLN's government-in-exile, the GPRA, at its creation in 1958, and re-elected in 1960 and 1961. He was not released until immediately before the independence of Algeria in 1962, after a brutal eight-year war that had cost more than 1.5 million lives.
Read more about this topic: Mohamed Boudiaf
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