L’engagement des étudiants et lycéens pour l’Algérie

The commitment of students and high school students to Algeria

May 19, 1956

The date of May 19, 1956 is inscribed in the history of the National Liberation War to mark the commitment of students and high school students, girls and boys, alongside other young Algerians and the people as a whole, in the armed struggle against French colonialism. They responded to the call launched by the UGEMA for the study strike, decided by the FLN, and to join the National Liberation Army (ALN) in the maquis, and the armed Fedayin groups in urban areas. The savagery of the repression exercised by the colonial enemy could not leave intellectuals indifferent, a growing number of whom enlisted and then found themselves grappling with the police: kidnappings, torture, disappearances multiplied. It was the assassinations, on November 6, 1954, of Kacem Zeddour-Brahim, from Oran, and on January 17, 1956, of Dr. Benzerdjeb, from Tlemcen, committed by the French police, which triggered the mobilization of the Algerian intellectual elite . The Ugema appeal denounced these two assassinations and convinced the students to act through a study and exam strike, starting on May 19, 1956. The Ugema had been created a few months before, when of a Congress, from July 8 to 14, 1955 in Paris, at the initiative of activists including Mohamed Seddik Benyahia, less than a year after the outbreak of the War of National Liberation. By organizing themselves in this way, the students were in fact preparing to engage in the struggle for independence. Support for the course strike – initially unlimited but which subsequently only concerned the school and university year 1956-1957 – was massive and affected all levels of the colonial education system, including schools. primaries. It was on this occasion that high school students and students went into the underground, most often encouraged by their parents, most of whom did not oppose their children’s choice to desert high school benches and university lecture halls to join the ALN.
In that year 1956, the number of Algerian students did not exceed 500, out of some 5,000 students at the University of Algiers, which was the only university in the country. The student strike gave new impetus to the War for Independence from 1956 for the restructuring and organization of the ALN’s action already carried out by the early fighters who had felt the need to fill their ranks with young and educated elements. This is what was done, with the immediate result of giving a greater dimension to the struggle
of national liberation.
May 19, 1956 thus demonstrated the choice of the Algerian elite for engagement in the struggle for independence, alongside the popular classes (poor peasants, unemployed, workers), the first victims of poverty and injustice. imposed by the colonial system, and who, naturally, were the first to engage in the armed struggle to put an end to colonialism, joined very quickly, a year and a half after November 1, 1954, by students and high school students.
Students, mujahideen and mujahideen, were subjected to torture in secret centers run by the French army. For their part, high school girls and students were fidaïyas or mujahidates in the maquis, liaison agents, they also helped transport weapons and medicines. Many of them fell on the field of honor.
A significant number of intellectuals (doctors, pharmacists, students, lawyers, etc.) had already engaged, before May 19, 1956, in the armed struggle against French colonialism, without waiting for the call from Ugema, and were already in the maquis or within fedayeen groups.
The leadership of the mujahideen of the wilaya of Blida had reported a remarkable and significant historical fact of the heroism of the mujahideen and their leaders. It was Chahid Tayeb Slimane Mohamed, known as Si Zoubir, one of the most prominent military leaders of historic wilaya IV at the time, who was appointed to supervise the students, gathered at the Sebaghnia douar.
Unfortunately, the group was targeted by the French army, which attacked it using 15 American-made Sikorski helicopters, loaded with hundreds of French soldiers. In this unequal fight, Si Zoubir fell on the field of honor in the company of 27 students, including a young girl.
Lakhdar A.