 From 1946 to 1951 he was a member of the French National Assembly as a representative of the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD).He played an important role during the first years of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), mainly in representing the FLN externally.In 1956, he was part of a group of FLN politicians (Khider, Ahmad Ben Bella, Hocine Aït Ahmed, Mohamed Boudiaf and Rabah Bitat) captured by France in an airplane hijacking.