Mehdi Lallaoui (arabic : مهدي لعلاوي), born in 1956 in Argenteuil, is a Franco-Algerian writer and director whose productions have the themes of working-class memories (particularly that of Algerian immigration), urban memories and colonial memory. His father, a specialized worker (OS), participated in the peaceful demonstration of October 17, 1961 during which he was beaten and left for dead by the French police. This fact, of which he was only informed at the end of the 1970s, would structure his militant commitment thereafter.

In 1983, he was one of the organizers of the first march for equality. After having passed through various union organizations (CGT, CFDT) and political organizations (PCF, PSU, LCR) of the left and extreme left, he decided to launch himself outside the traditional parties in the mid-1980s. He was notably an independent candidate in the regional elections of 1986 and the legislative elections of 19885.

In 1989, he led the Black Blanc Beur associative movement in the Paris region. In 1990, he co-founded, with Samia Messaoudi and Benjamin Stora, the association In the Name of Memory. In 2010, he was a juror for the Porte Dorée Literary Prize. In May 2015, he was interviewed for the France Culture program Du grain à moudre entitled “France/Algeria: what to commemorate together? »