The Algerian War Comes to Argentina: The FLN, the French, and the United Nations, 1956–62

As the Algerian War ramped up in the second half of the 1950s, the Algerian FLN established a propaganda office in Buenos Aires, sharing space and resources with the local Arab League legation. Once erected, the FLN initiated a sustained public campaign within and without Argentina to sway public opinion in support of this liberation movement in North Africa. The hopes of this campaign was to inspire enough public activism to convince the government in Buenos Aires to support Algerians’ right to self-determination under discussion at the United Nations.

To sustain this campaign, these activists in Buenos Aires partnered with sympathetic Argentines, published opinion pieces in local newspapers, hosted nationalist figures including the future president of Algeria’s National Constituent Assembly Ferhat Abbas, and organized public demonstrations denouncing French colonialism. In response, the French state attempted to minimize the impact of this FLN beachhead in the South Atlantic by pressurizing the Argentine government to harass and intervene. The results were a variety of disconnected policies at the domestic level and an internal diplomatic dustup between the Argentine Ambassador to the United Nations and his superiors in Buenos Aires.

The activities of these Algerian exiles in Buenos Aires reveal various layers of encounters and consequences that show a dynamic interplay between the French diplomats, Argentine officials, and Argentine civil society. It also demonstrates clearly that the outcomes of these encounters were often unanticipated and volatile.

This paper is built upon primary sources including French diplomatic dispatches, Argentine and French newspapers, petitions and letters from Argentine civil society groups, and speeches and broadsides from the Algerian activists.