Ferhat Abbas appears in the wartime political landscape of Algeria as the author of the Algerian Manifesto of 1943. His intervention articulated a programme centred on autonomy, democracy, and a federal relationship with France. The proposal placed Algerian political aspirations within a constitutional framework while challenging the existing colonial order.

The manifesto reflected the more advanced nationalist climate of French North Africa during the Second World War. In the Maghrib, independence had already become a long-term nationalist objective, while the weakening of French authority and the influence of Pan-Arabism intensified political discontent. Abbas’s programme therefore represented both reformist constitutionalism and a challenge to colonial subordination.