 Lamine Debaghine was elected minister of foreign affairs in the first lineup of the FLN's government-in-exile, GPRA, under Ferhat Abbas's presidency, holding the post for the period 1958-1960.In this role, he served as a primary spokesman of the FLN to the outside world, and worked to build alliances with the newly independent countries of the Arab world and other regions.However, being outside the country, he had limited authority over the actual armed rebellion of the FLN's armed wing, the Armée de libération nationale (ALN).