A few days before the 28 May 1926 coup d'état, on the initiative of Manuel Joaquim de Sousa, the Iberian Anarchist Federation (, FAI) was founded in Marseille, at the second Congress of the Federation of Spanish-speaking anarchist groups. Influenced by the example of the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation, the objective was to strengthen the anarchist character of the Spanish National Confederation of Labour and the Portuguese General Confederation of Labour, by creating joint committees bringing together FAI members and trade unionists to move the union away from the influence of Republican political groups. The term Iberian referred to his desire to unify the Portuguese and Spanish anarchist movement in a pan-Iberian organization. Given the political instability in Spain, its headquarters were in Lisbon.