Background
The Algerian War had been going on since 1954. The French government of Charles de Gaulle had hoped that its January 8, 1961, referendum on Algerian independence, and the consequent Evian Accords of March 18, 1962, would bring an end to the brutal conflict. The accords, which were reached during a cease-fire between French armed forces and the Algerian nationalist organization the Front de libération nationale (FLN), began the process of transfer of power from the French to the Algerian majority.
The Evian Accords had supposedly guaranteed the rights and safety of the pieds-noirs, French, Spanish, and Jewish colonial residents, in an independent Algeria. However rumor had by then spread throughout the pieds-noirs (black feet) community that their choice was between "the suitcase or the coffin" (exile or death). With armed conflict apparently at an end, the French government loosened security on Algeria's border with Morocco, allowing the FLN increasingly free movement within Algeria. French pieds-noirs and some pro-French native Algerians began fleeing Algeria in April 1962 and by late May hundreds of thousands had emigrated, chiefly to metropolitan France.
Independence had been bitterly opposed by the pieds-noirs and many members of the French military, and the anti-independence Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) started a campaign of open rebellion against the French government, declaring its military to be an "occupying power". A "scorched earth" policy was declared by the OAS, to deny French-built development to the future FLN government. This policy climaxed June 7, 1962, as the OAS Delta Commando burned Algiers' Library, with its 60,000 volumes, and blew up Oran's town hall, the municipal library, and four schools. In addition the OAS was pursuing a terror-bombing campaign that in May 1962 was killing an estimated 10 to 15 people in Oran daily.
Read more about this topic: Oran Massacre Of 1962
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