(, "Red

All Saints' Day All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows, the Solemnity of All Saints, and Hallowmas, is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honour of all the saints of the church, whether they are k ...

"), also known as ("Bloody All-Saints' Day") is the name given to a series of 70 attacks committed by militant members of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) that took place on 1 November 1954—the Catholic festival of

—in

French Algeria French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...

. It is usually taken as the starting date for the

Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

which lasted until 1962 and led to

Algerian independence An independence referendum was held in French Algeria on 1 July 1962. It followed French approval of the Évian Accords in an April referendum. Voters were asked whether Algeria should become an independent state, co-operating with France; 99 ...

from France.

Background

Attacks

Between midnight and 2 am on the morning of

, 70 individual attacks were made by FLN militants against police, military and civilian Pieds noirs targets around

. Ten people were killed in the coordinated attacks.

Reaction in Paris

After hearing of the attacks, Francois Mitterrand, then

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

, despatched two companies (600 men) of the (CRS) to Algeria. A total of three companies of paratroopers also arrived between 1 and 2 November. On 12 November 1954, Pierre Mendes France, President of the French Council of Ministers declared that the attacks would not be tolerated in a speech to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the r ...

: The Mendes France government increased the number of soldiers in Algeria from 56,000 to 83,000 men to deal with the situation in the Aures mountains — the "main bastion of the insurrection," though the sending of the conscripts to Algeria did not occur until one year later after the ' (lit: "Day of Tomatoes") on 6 February 1956 under the Mollet government.

Public reaction

The political reaction notwithstanding, the ' attacks did not receive much coverage in the French media. The French daily newspaper ' ran a single short column on the front page, and ' gave it just two columns.

References

{{coord missing, Algeria 1954 in Algeria Algerian War Terrorist incidents in Algeria Massacres in Algeria Mass murder in 1954 Algerian war crimes November 1954 events in Africa 1954 murders in Algeria Terrorist incidents in Africa in 1954 Terrorist incidents in Algeria in the 1950s