He completed his Arabic studies at the Fouad I University in Cairo during 1927, then back in Paris at the Faculty of the Sorbonne (degree in letters, diploma in political science) from 1928 to 1932.

He helped create the Association of North African Muslim Students in France alongside Mohamed Hassan Ouazzani, his junior in Parisian studies, and Ahmed Ben Miled.

They both shared the conviction that the offensive of de-Islamization of the Arab nation, in which the Berber Dahir participated, was a determining factor of the colonial occupation.

Meeting Chekib Arslan again in Madrid during his trip to Morocco, he supported the creation of the Hispano-Muslim Association in Tetouan created by Abdesslam Bennouna on the initiative of the deputy of the Spanish Republic, José Franchi Roca.

At the beginning of 1932, Balafrej, Ouazzani, and Ben Abdeljalil approached Robert-Jean Longuet—Parisian lawyer, anti-colonialist, and socialist—to secure the defence of the Moroccan nationalists harassed by the authorities.

Driven by Chekib Arslan, who arranged the meeting, Balafrej travelled from Switzerland to Berlin for a few days in October 1940, to signal to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the importance of acknowledging Moroccan independence without delay.

Food was rationed; the colonial administration, whose Pétainist bracket had strongly exacerbated anti-Arab racism; Muslims and Jews alike were taken over by the Free France government of General de Gaulle.

In 1943, Allal El Fassi was still in exile, and apart from timid approaches, quickly broken off, it was rather through the surveillance of military security that contact continued between nationalists and the new colonial authorities.

In 1944, having anticipated the process of decolonization that the Anglo-French would inevitably initiate after their victory over Nazi Germany, Balafrej is drafted the Manifesto of Independence of Morocco (Ouatiqate al-Istiqlal) signed by 67 of his nationalist friends.

In 1947, Ahmed Balafrej brought his family to safety in Tangier, and Madrid, from where he conducted a diplomatic campaign in the United States, Switzerland, France, and Spain in order to promote the Moroccan cause there.

He gave priority to the internationalization of the national cause and pursued a diplomatic campaign aimed at increasing the recognition of Morocco's independence.

In contrast, he had to battle hard to convince American diplomacy to transfer the defense of its strategic interests in the Mediterranean, in the midst of the Cold War, from its French ally to an independent Moroccan authority.

Competition begins for the control of executive power where Balafrej tried to get the sultan to compose the transitional government according to a program instead of as a balance of rivalries in which the royal cabinet would be the arbiter.

He was allowed to return to Morocco on November 25, 1955, and the extraordinary congress of the Istiqlal party that he organized in Rabat in December 1955 and which confirmed it in his post of secretary-general authorized the promulgation of the first Moroccan transitional government.