45th Anniversary of the Revolution
Forty-five years after November 1, 1954, the memory remains vivid. The Algerian people remember the sacrifices made by men and women who paid with their lives for the independence of their country. On November 1, 1954, resolute revolutionaries, grouped under the banner of the National Liberation Front (FLN), took up arms and decided to launch the War of National Liberation which would lead them to independence.
Their resolution made, nothing should deter them, convinced as they were that the French colonizer had totally usurped the most basic rights of the Algerian people, keeping them in destitution and in unacceptable economic, social and cultural misery. To put an end to oppression and the denial of their freedoms, the Algerian people had no choice but to take up arms to put an end to the colonial yoke.
Seven and a half years of war were necessary to bring the occupying French army to recognize its defeat in the face of the determination of the mujahideen supported by the population across the Algerian countryside and cities. Neither the sophisticated weapons of the occupier nor its planes dropping bombs on the isolated villages and mechtas of Aurès, Kabylie and elsewhere will overcome the resolution taken by the Algerians to put an end to colonization.
The systematic use of torture to force militants to divulge the FLN's struggle secrets and war plans only served to consolidate the cohesion of the mujahideen groups and to strengthen their faith in the certain independence of Algeria. The right of the Algerian people to self-determination and independence was finally wrested from a hard struggle against the occupier, forced to open negotiations with the FLN through the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA).
The ceasefire will take place on March 19, 1962 and will be followed on July 1, 1962 by the referendum for national independence which will lead France to recognize the independence of Algeria proclaimed by the GPRA on July 5, 1962, 132 years, to the day, after the invasion of the colonial army in Sidi Fredj.
Their resolution made, nothing should deter them, convinced as they were that the French colonizer had totally usurped the most basic rights of the Algerian people, keeping them in destitution and in unacceptable economic, social and cultural misery. To put an end to oppression and the denial of their freedoms, the Algerian people had no choice but to take up arms to put an end to the colonial yoke.
Seven and a half years of war were necessary to bring the occupying French army to recognize its defeat in the face of the determination of the mujahideen supported by the population across the Algerian countryside and cities. Neither the sophisticated weapons of the occupier nor its planes dropping bombs on the isolated villages and mechtas of Aurès, Kabylie and elsewhere will overcome the resolution taken by the Algerians to put an end to colonization.
The systematic use of torture to force militants to divulge the FLN's struggle secrets and war plans only served to consolidate the cohesion of the mujahideen groups and to strengthen their faith in the certain independence of Algeria. The right of the Algerian people to self-determination and independence was finally wrested from a hard struggle against the occupier, forced to open negotiations with the FLN through the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA).
The ceasefire will take place on March 19, 1962 and will be followed on July 1, 1962 by the referendum for national independence which will lead France to recognize the independence of Algeria proclaimed by the GPRA on July 5, 1962, 132 years, to the day, after the invasion of the colonial army in Sidi Fredj.