page_title: Algerian War
section_title: Battle of Algiers
hierarchical_section_title: Algerian War / War chronology / Battle of Algiers
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte des principaux attentats FLN, attentats contre-terroristes et opérations répressives avant et pendant la bataille d'Alger.
context_page_description: The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian War of Independence or the Algerian Revolution, and in Algeria itself sometimes called The War of 1 November, was fought between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, and the use of torture. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria, with repercussions in metropolitan France.
  Effectively started by members of the National Liberation Front on 1 November 1954, during the Toussaint Rouge, the conflict led to serious political crises in France, causing the fall of the Fourth Republic, to be replaced by the Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency. The brutality of the methods employed by the French forces failed to win hearts and minds in Algeria, alienated support in metropolitan France and discredited French prestige abroad.
context_section_description: To increase international and domestic French attention to their struggle, the FLN decided to bring the conflict to the cities and to call a nationwide general strike and also to plant bombs in public places. The most notable instance was the Battle of Algiers, which began on September 30, 1956, when three women, including Djamila Bouhired and Zohra Drif, simultaneously placed bombs at three sites including the downtown office of Air France. The FLN carried out shootings and bombings in the spring of 1957, resulting in civilian casualties and a crushing response from the authorities.
  General Jacques Massu was instructed to use whatever methods deemed necessary to restore order in the city and to find and eliminate terrorists. Using paratroopers, he broke the strike and, in the succeeding months, destroyed the FLN infrastructure in Algiers. But the FLN had succeeded in showing its ability to strike at the heart of French Algeria and to assemble a mass response to its demands among urban Muslims. The publicity given to the brutal methods used by the army to win the Battle of Algiers, including the use of torture, strong movement control and curfew called quadrillage and where all authority was under the military, created doubt in France about its role in Algeria. What was originally "pacification" or a "public order operation" had turned into a colonial war accompanied by torture.
caption: Algiers: Muslim quarters (green), European quarters (orange), terrorist attacks
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