The National Liberation Front (FLN) initiated a coordinated wave of bombings and sabotage across French Algeria on All Saints’ Day—an outbreak widely treated as the start of the Algerian War of Independence.
Mass violence around Philippeville (Skikda) and harsh French reprisals marked a major escalation, deepening the conflict and widening its human and political stakes.
At a secret congress in the Soummam Valley, FLN leaders adopted the Soummam Platform and created national coordinating bodies to unify strategy and organization, shaping the war’s political-military structure.
An intense campaign of urban insurgency and counterinsurgency unfolded in Algiers, with FLN bombings and French security operations (including systematic torture) making the conflict globally notorious.
French forces intercepted a Moroccan civilian aircraft and arrested several top FLN figures (including Ahmed Ben Bella and Mohamed Boudiaf), disrupting FLN external diplomacy and leadership coordination.
A mass killing at Melouza—linked to rivalry between Algerian nationalist factions—underscored that the war also involved violent struggles over political legitimacy inside the independence movement.
French air attacks on the Tunisian border town of Sakiet Sidi Youssef—aimed at disrupting Algerian insurgent sanctuaries—killed large numbers of civilians and triggered international condemnation.
An army-backed uprising in Algiers (13 May) catalyzed the collapse of France’s Fourth Republic and accelerated Charles de Gaulle’s return to power—turning the Algerian conflict into a decisive metropolitan political crisis.
In a major policy shift, de Gaulle publicly proclaimed recourse to self-determination for Algeria, signaling that continued integration as “French Algeria” was no longer France’s inevitable endpoint.
A referendum in France (and in Algeria under French administration) approved the principle of Algerian self-determination, strengthening de Gaulle’s mandate to negotiate a political settlement.
Hardline opponents of independence formed the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), launching a campaign of terrorism intended to keep Algeria French and destabilize negotiations and de Gaulle’s policy.
Four French generals attempted a coup in Algeria to prevent decolonization, but the putsch collapsed—after which pro-“Algérie française” militancy increasingly shifted to OAS terror tactics.
French police violently repressed a large FLN-linked protest against a curfew targeting Algerians in Paris; the event became a landmark in the war’s metropolitan dimension and in later memory politics.
Negotiators concluded the Évian Accords, establishing terms for ending the war and setting a ceasefire (effective the next day), alongside a framework for Algerian independence and future cooperation.
In an independence referendum held in Algeria, voters overwhelmingly supported independence under terms referenced from the March 1962 declarations, paving the way for formal separation from France.
Following the referendum, France declared Algeria independent; Algerian leaders soon designated 5 July as Independence Day, cementing the end of 132 years of French colonial rule.
Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962)