Introduction

The Algerian war of independence between 1954 and 1962 was a global rallying point for internationalist solidarity and a symbol of the liberation of the Third World. The international dimension of the national revolutionary movement led by the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in those years has recently been well-documented and -studied. Significant research has also been dedicated to the development of Algerian nationalism and its relation to leftist parties in Algeria and metropolitan France before the war of independence. Much less attention has been devoted to the international activities of nationalist and leftist movements before the start of the FLN's publicity campaigns in 1955. But in fact, various political groups had been actively promoting their cause on the world stage at least since the end of the Second World War. It seems that the international struggle was almost as important as activities in Algeria and France for the making of Algeria as an independent nation.

This contribution will look at one set of events that allowed Algerian anticolonial movements to present themselves in an international arena: the World Youth Festivals between 1947 and 1959. Algerian national delegations already participated in the Festivals before Algeria came into being as an independent state and, as such, can be seen as having contributed to the construction of Algerian nationhood. As the Festivals were gatherings for young people, participants did not represent political parties directly, but only their respective youth branches or more or less independent youth groups like the scouts. Youth movements had, however, been central to the development of Algerian nationalism in the last decades of French colonial rule. These groups, with their different political persuasions, all contributed to the evolution of ideas about the nation. Although the FLN, which would finally incorporate the other currents, is often seen as the epitome of a socialist, Third-Worldist liberation movement, communists and nationalists as well as liberals and Islamists had played their part in Algerian youth organisations.

On the basis of coverage in the press, this chapter will look at the motivations and aims of the different Algerian youth groups at the Festivals and discuss the question of what made these gatherings, which were organised primarily by communist movements, attractive for them.