On 30 June, the day before Algeria held its referendum, the G.P.R.A. took the unprecedented step of dissolving the General Staff and dismissing Boumedienne, amid scenes that were the most tumultuous ever witnessed within the leadership of the F.L.N. Writing of this period in Le Monde one pro-F.L.N. French journalist, Jean Daniel, was "shocked by the intensity and vindictiveness of the rivalry, and astonished to find that mutual recrimination among Muslim leaders was much worse than it had been between the rebels and the French". The essentially uncombative Ben Khedda withdrew from this bear-garden to Tunis before the end of the Tripoli congress, a tactical error thereby leaving the way open to Ben Bella.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1632