 He emerged as one of the group's most important leaders, pushing for confrontation with the colonial authorities and demanding independence (as opposed to the more moderate followers of Ferhat Abbas, who, unlike the PPA, restricted their demands to full citizenship for Algerian Muslims and autonomous rule).In 1946, Lamine Debaghine was elected to the French parliament as a deputy of Constantine on a list backed by the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties, a successor movement to the banned PPA.In parliament, he called for Algeria's independence and described France's annexation of the country in 1830 an "aggression", but otherwise stayed out of most parliamentary debates and votes (an exception being to vote against French membership in NATO in 1949).