Louisette Ighilahriz

Biography

Louisa Ighilahriz, known as Louisette (Arabic: لويزة إغيل أحريز, Kabyle: Lwizet Iɣil-aḥriz), born August 22, 1936, in Oujda, Morocco, was an Algerian nationalist activist during the Algerian War. Louisette was born in Morocco to Kabyle parents from the Tigzirt region, in the Tizi-Ouzou province, Algeria. Her father, Saïd, was born in the village of Tifra, while her mother, Tassadit Tissira, was born in Tourirt Ait Zouaou in Upper Kabylia. Committed to the nationalist struggle, Louisette moved with her family to Algiers in 1948. As a student, she joined the ranks of the FLN in the Autonomous Zone of Algiers at the age of 20 on the eve of the Battle of Algiers in late 1956 under the name Lila. She took part in the high school students' strike, then fled into the maquis when she was actively sought after. She was part of the French FLN support network of "suitcase carriers" during the Battle of Algiers. Seriously wounded alongside her network leader, Saïd Bakel, during an ambush on September 28, 1957, in Chebli, Wilaya IV, she was urgently repatriated to the 10th DP (Paratrooper Division), in a residence known as "Peltzer Castle," the current compound of the French Embassy in Hydra, where she claims to have suffered numerous tortures, which she attributes in particular to Captain Graziani. Suffering from illness, she was transferred to an Algerian prison after the intervention of a French army doctor, Commander Richaud. Later, she was sent to several French prisons: Les Baumettes, La Roquette, Amiens, Fresnes, Bordeaux, Pau, and Toulouse. Placed under house arrest in Corsica, she fled Bastia on February 16, 1962, aided by numerous French people, including her lawyer Marcel Manville, and French communist activists who sheltered her in Nice until Algerian independence. She returned to Algeria where she continued to lead various political struggles. Louisette Ighilahriz, a psychologist by training and profession, has been decorated several times by her country's authorities for her participation in Algerian independence.