1. Ferhat Abbas was an Algerian politician who acted in a provisional capacity as the then yet-to-become independent country's Prime Minister from 1958 to 1961, as well as the first President of the National Assembly and the first acting Chief of State after independence.
An influential figure in the Young Algerians, Abbas initially advocated for equal political rights for Algerian Muslims in France and for the granting of French citizenship for Algerian Muslims.
The son of a caid, Said Ben Ahmed Abbas and Achoura Abbas, Ferhat Abbas was born in the village of Taher, Algeria.
The young Ferhat Abbas was educated first at Phillipeville, Constantine, where he received his baccalaureate.
Ferhat Abbas then attended the pharmacy school at the University of Algiers.
However Ferhat Abbas became disillusioned with France, during 1938, when his aspirations for equality showed no sign of being achieved.
Ferhat Abbas accordingly organized the Algerian Popular Union.
Ferhat Abbas now condemned colonial rule by the French and demanded Algerian self-determination.
Ferhat Abbas argued the need for an Algerian constitution, which would grant equality to all Algerians.
In 1946, Ferhat Abbas formed the nationalist political party Union Democratique du Manifeste Algerien when he was elected member of the Constituent Assembly of France.
Ferhat Abbas remained active in politics as a member of the Algerian Assembly through 1955.
Ferhat Abbas's continuing efforts as a moderate nationalist did not succeed and he fled to Cairo, in 1956.
However, after the French government intensified the war, in 1956, Ferhat Abbas joined the Front de Liberation Nationale.
Ferhat Abbas's political standing in Algeria and reputation as a moderate nationalist, acceptable to the West, helped him become president of this provisional Algerian nationalist government-in-exile on September 18,1958, when it was created.
Ferhat Abbas reassured the West by stating that his new alliances were opportunism, when he stated that.
Algeria gained independence on July 5,1962, and from September 25,1962, to September 15,1963, Ferhat Abbas was president of the constitutional assembly, but this institution was rapidly sidelined by Ben Bella, who had gained the presidency.
Ferhat Abbas resigned in protest at the FLN's decision to write the constitution outside of the constituent assembly's authority.
Ferhat Abbas was expelled from the FLN, and was then placed under house arrest from 1964 until 1965.
Ferhat Abbas enjoyed soccer, horseback riding, and reading, in particular, Victor Hugo and Sophocles.
Ferhat Abbas married Marcelle Stoetzel, an Algerian-born French national on 17 September 1945.