Ferhat Abbas

Ferhat Abbas was an Algerian nationalist leader who began as a reformer asking for equal rights within France. In 1958, during the war of independence, he became the first president of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic. He was born in 1899 in Chahna, a rural district near Taher, in the wilaya of Jijel, and died in Algiers on 24 December 1985.

His father was a caïd, a local official under the French administration.

After secondary school in Philippeville, now Skikda, and Constantine, he studied pharmacy at the University of Algiers, where he led the Muslim students' association. In 1933 he opened a pharmacy in Sétif and became a town councillor there.

In 1936 he wrote that he had looked for an Algerian nation and had not found it. His views changed over the years, and on 10 February 1943 he published the Manifesto of the Algerian People.

Arrested after the events of 8 May 1945 in Sétif, he was freed in 1946 and founded the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA). In April 1956, in Cairo, he joined the National Liberation Front (FLN). On 19 September 1958 he became president of the provisional government, a post he held until August 1961.

In September 1962 he became the first president of the National Constituent Assembly. He resigned in August 1963 over the way the constitution was drafted. The university of Sétif bears his name.