Algeria Wins Independence After a Long War

On 1 November 1954, armed members of the newly formed National Liberation Front launched coordinated assaults on civilian and military sites across Algeria. Known as the Toussaint Rouge, the offensive marked the start of an eight-year war for sovereignty against French rule. France had captured Algiers in 1830 and subsequently organized the territory into departments regarded by Paris as an integral part of France rather than an overseas possession. Early colonial resistance led by Abdelkader had been suppressed with widespread violence, and subsequent legal frameworks kept the majority Muslim population politically disenfranchised. After over a century of colonial control, the nationalist leadership concluded that diplomatic reform within the French system had failed to secure self-determination.

Recognizing that they could not match the conventional strength of the French military, the insurgents adopted guerrilla strategies and urban attacks designed to exhaust French resources and fracture metropolitan political consensus. The conflict escalated dramatically after August 1955, when nationalist fighters killed 123 people, including 71 Europeans, around Philippeville. French authorities and armed settler groups retaliated with sweeping crackdowns that killed thousands of Algerians. This cycle of violence galvanized widespread Muslim support behind the insurrection and convinced colonial administrators that military pacification required exceptional measures.