October 22, 1956: France hijacks the plane of five FLN leaders, including Ben Bella

On October 22, 1956, French fighter jets intercepted a Royal Air Maroc DC-3 over the Mediterranean, which was flying from Rabat to Tunis, and forced it to land in Algiers. On board were five leaders of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN): Ahmed Ben Bella, Mohamed Boudiaf, Hocine Aït Ahmed, Mohamed Khider, and Mostefa Lacheraf. Arrested on the tarmac, they would remain prisoners for more than five years.

These men were not going to war, but to a conference: Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba had invited them to discuss a North African federation project, two years after the start of the Algerian War on November 1, 1954. Morocco had been independent since March 2, 1956, as had Tunisia: North Africa was reorganizing, and Algeria remained the missing piece.

A plane changed at the last minute

According to Afrik.com, it was Aït Ahmed who had his companions change aircraft to avoid exposing King Mohammed V, whose plane was originally scheduled to transport them. This second aircraft, belonging to a Moroccan company but piloted by a Frenchman, had no diplomatic immunity: it was this loophole that France exploited after the stopover in Palma de Mallorca.

Who gave the order? Sources differ. Wikipedia attributes it to Max Lejeune, Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, and to generals in Algiers, noting that Prime Minister Guy Mollet had been kept in the dark; Hérodote describes secret services acting beyond government instructions. Both versions converge: Paris discovered the show of force after the fact and took responsibility for it.

Two humiliated African states

The response was immediate. In Morocco, Mohammed V, whose guests had just been abducted, recalled his ambassador to Paris; riots in Meknès and its surroundings resulted in dozens of deaths, according to Hérodote. In Tunisia, Bourguiba aligned himself with Rabat: the conference did not take place and the North African federation was buried. In Paris, Secretary of State Alain Savary resigned and secret negotiations held in Rome with the FLN were broken off, reports Wikipedia.

What the hijacking changed

The operation aimed to decapitate the FLN. Above all, it removed its political leaders, who were the most open to a negotiated solution, in favor of its military branch and its hardest-line elements: both Hérodote and Afrik.com see this as a turning point in the radicalization of the conflict. Ben Bella reportedly declared that "this will change nothing," according to Wikipedia.

He was not wrong. The five were released with the Evian Accords, signed on March 18, 1962. On July 1, Algerians approved independence by 5,975,581 votes to 16,534; it was proclaimed on July 3. On September 22, Ben Bella became the first president of independent Algeria.

Key takeaways

On October 22, 1956, France hijacked a Moroccan plane to capture five FLN leaders, including Ahmed Ben Bella, who would spend more than five years in prison. Far from breaking the Algerian revolution, the show of force hardened the war and buried the North African federation.