The F.L.N. feared a sectarian Arab-Kabyle split exploit by the French.

Evidence

Nevertheless, in that hard-pressed summer of 1957 the Si Chérif affair opened up to the F.L.N. one of its greatest latent nightmares: the prospect of a sectarian split between Arabs and Kabyles. It was an opportunity for which French intelligence was constantly, and obviously, on the look out. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 697 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In the past, the Kabyle and the Arab had little love for each other, and — in the best colonial tradition — it was often the policy of French administrators to set one off against the other. More orthodox in religion than the Kabyles, the Arabs were at the same time perhaps more supple in their mental processes, and shrewder businessmen. As townsmen and lowlanders they had had the most contact with French culture, and had also suffered, directly, the most in that it was largely their patrimonial lands that had come within the grasp of the colons. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 150 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Si Chérif’s Arab-Kabyle feud defected a whole katiba to the French; Arab-Kabyle rivalry forced collective revolutionary leadership from the start; The Arab-Kabyle split was the F.L.N.’s chief nightmare exploited by the French. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 697 (+1 more)

Related

• The Arab-Kabyle split was the F.L.N.’s chief nightmare exploited by the French. (similarity 0.97)
• Si Chérif’s Arab-Kabyle feud defected a whole katiba to the French (similarity 0.95)
• Arab-Kabyle rivalry forced collective revolutionary leadership from the start (similarity 0.87)
• French colonial policy deliberately divided Kabyle against Arab populations (similarity 0.86)
• Colonial divide-and-rule pitted Kabyles against Arabs in Algeria (similarity 0.84)
• Kabyle-Arab rivalry forced the FLN into a collective leadership without a supreme chief (similarity 0.82)
• The Algiers defeat exposed a fatal interior-exterior rift in F.L.N. leadership (similarity 0.80)
• Rural Algerians had labeled every local European before the F.L.N. approached any of them. (similarity 0.79)
• The F.L.N.’s Algiers urban operations failed almost entirely on the opening night (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The Arab-Kabyle split was the F.L.N.’s chief nightmare exploited by the French. #corroborates (0.90) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 697
• French colonial policy deliberately divided Kabyle against Arab populations #expands (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 150