Guy Mollet’s third way: national rnewal and the French civilising mission in Algeria

In the early hours of 1 November 1954, small groups of armed men carried out a series of coordinated attacks across Algeria. Many of the incidents took place in the bleak mountainous Aurès region in the southeast of the country, a region with a long established tradition of the rejection of French rule. As well as assassinations and sabotage, police outposts were targeted and tracts distributed within which a hitherto unknown group—the National Liberation Front (FLN)—called for the end of French rule and the establishment of an independent Algerian state. Eight in total were killed.