Fratricidal War: The Conflict between the Mouvement national algérien (MNA) and the Front de libération nationale (FLN) in France during the Algerian War (1954–1962)

On the eve of the Algerian War—one of the most violent wars of decolonisation of the twentieth century—the Algerian nationalist movement was still led by Messali Hadj, the charismatic figure who had shaped it from its very beginnings in emigration in France in the mid-1920s. However, this movement, then known as the Mouvement pour le triomphe des libertés démocratiques (MTLD, 1946–1954), was affected by deep crises and tensions at the end of the 1940s and, at the beginning of the 1950s, by a conflict between Messali's supporters (known as the Messalists) and a younger generation of militants known as the Centralists. This conflict ultimately led to the emergence of a third nationalist force, which launched the insurrection of 1 November 1954 that marked the beginning of the Algerian War. This article explores some important aspects of the bloody internal war that opposed Messali Hadj's MNA and the FLN in France during the Algerian War and discusses some of the key political processes that led to the rapid decline of the Messalist movement in the last years of the war.