Oran massacre of 1962

{{Short description|Massacre of French settlers in Oran, Algeria July 1962}}

{{Infobox civilian attack

| title = Oran massacre of 1962

| location = Oran, Algeria

| date = July 5–7, 1962

| partof = aftermath of the Algerian War

| image =

| image_size = 310

| native_name =

| target = Pied-Noirs

| fatalities = Between 95 and 365

| injuries = ~161

| perpetrators = National Liberation Army
Algerian civilians

| motive = Ethnic conflict

}}

The Oran massacre of 1962 (5–7 July 1962) was the mass killing of Pied-Noir and European expatriates living in Algeria. It took place in Oran beginning on the date of Algerian independence, and ended on 7 July 1962. Estimates of the casualties vary from a low of 95 (twenty of whom were European)Benjamin Stora, Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History (Cornell University Press, 2004) p105 to 365 deaths in a report by a group of historians sent to the French government in 2006,{{cite web|url=http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/la-verite-sur-les-massacres-d-oran_460144.html|title=Algérie 1962 : La vérité sur les massacres d'Oran|last=Thiolay|first=Boris|date=2006-09-13|work=L'Express|accessdate=12 November 2012|archive-date=2012-08-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120813004854/http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/la-verite-sur-les-massacres-d-oran_460144.html|url-status=live}} and have been utilised by right-wing parties.{{Cite web|title=Pourquoi la droite réhabilite-t-elle le colonialisme ?|url=https://www.telerama.fr/idees/pourquoi-la-droite-rehabilite-t-elle-le-colonialisme,60517.php|access-date=2020-07-05|website=Télérama|date=25 September 2010|language=fr|archive-date=2020-07-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200705191555/https://www.telerama.fr/idees/pourquoi-la-droite-rehabilite-t-elle-le-colonialisme,60517.php|url-status=live}}

Background

The Algerian War had been underway since 1954. The Évian Accords of 18 March 1962 brought an end to the conflict. The Accords, which were reached during a cease-fire between French armed forces and the Algerian nationalist organisation the Front de libération nationale (FLN), began the process of transfer of power from the French to the Algerians. The Évian Accords intended to guarantee the rights and safety of the pieds-noirs, French and Spanish colonial residents, many born in Algeria, and indigenous Sephardi Jews in an independent Algeria. However, the flight of French pieds-noirs and pro-French native Algerians began in April 1962, and by late May hundreds of thousands had emigrated from Algeria, chiefly to metropolitan France. In fact, within weeks, three-quarters of the pieds-noirs had resettled in France.{{Citation |last=Cohen |first=William B. |title=Pied-Noir Memory, History, and the Algerian War |date=2003 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46mxq8.10 |work=Europe's Invisible Migrants |pages=129–146 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Andrea L. |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |jstor=j.ctt46mxq8.10 |isbn=978-90-5356-571-1 |access-date=2023-02-27 |archive-date=2023-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227110049/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46mxq8.10 |url-status=live }}

With armed conflict apparently at an end, the French government loosened security on Algeria's border with Morocco, allowing the FLN freer movement within Algeria. Independence had been bitterly opposed by the pieds-noirs and many members of the French military, and the anti-independence Organisation armée secrète (OAS) started a campaign of open rebellion against the French government, declaring its military to be an "occupying power".See Le Figaro, March 24–25, 1962, (see [https://archive.today/20120804055330/http://www.ldh-toulon.net/spip.php?article104 "La fusillade de la rue d’Isly, l’exode des pieds-noirs, Oran"], Human Rights League, March 2002 The OAS engaged in a bombing campaign that killed an estimated 10 to 50 Algerians in Oran daily in May 1962.{{Cite book |last=Stora |first=Benjamin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_-5XTVKW08C |title=Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History |date=2004 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-8916-7 |language=en}} The violence was so intense in Oran that people living in European neighbourhoods rapidly left them; some Muslims left Oran to join their families in the villages, or in cities that did not have a large European population.{{Cite book |last=Stora |first=Benjamin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_-5XTVKW08C |title=Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History |date=2004 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-8916-7 |language=en}} The OAS similarly declared a "scorched earth" policy to deny French-built facilities and development to the future FLN government, a policy that reached its climax on 7 June 1962 when the OAS Delta Commando burned Algiers Library and its 60,000 volumes and blew up Oran's town hall, the municipal library, and four schools.[https://archive.today/20120804055330/http://www.ldh-toulon.net/spip.php?article104 la fusillade de la rue d’Isly, l’exode des pieds-noirs, Oran--no exits this link], Human Rights League, March 2002 On June 25 and 26 1962, the OAS commandos attacked and robbed six banks.{{Cite book |last=Stora |first=Benjamin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_-5XTVKW08C |title=Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History |date=2004 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-8916-7 |language=en}}

Oran was a particularly important place in French Algeria. Oran stood out for its unique demography. In the 1931 census, over 80% of the inhabitants were reportedly European, a proportion that increased drastically after 1939 when a new wave of Spaniards migrated there to flee the Spanish Civil War.{{Cite journal |last=Marynower |first=Claire |date=December 2013 |title=The full place of power: interwar Oran, the French empire's bullring? |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629387.2013.849895 |journal=The Journal of North African Studies |language=en |volume=18 |issue=5 |pages=690–702 |doi=10.1080/13629387.2013.849895 |s2cid=144391192 |issn=1362-9387 |access-date=2023-02-27 |archive-date=2022-03-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324052849/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629387.2013.849895 |url-status=live }} Violent conflicts had taken place in Oran since the end of the 19th century, particularly between different communities. In the 1930s, Oran's bullring became the central arena for the campaign for reform of Algerian institutions; and in 1936 and 1937, was home to strikes that shook the city. One incident between strikers and non-strikers during this period escalated to the point of police firing shots in the bullring, and, elsewhere in the city, police being attacked with stones. Talking about Oran during the interwar period, historian Claire Marynower described Oran as "a place where politics were transformed and radicalised, throwing into sharp local relief issues that concerned the whole French empire."

Event

On the morning of 5 July 1962, the day Algeria became independent, seven katibas (companies) of FLN troops entered the city and were fired at by some Europeans.Alistair Horne, page 533 A Savage War Of Peace, {{ISBN|0-670-61964-7}} An outraged Arab mob swept into the pied-noir neighbourhoods, which had already been largely vacated, and attacked the remaining pieds-noirs. The violence lasted several hours, during which the mob cut the throats of many men, women and children. The massacre was ended by the deployment of French Gendarmerie.

Neither the Algerian police nor the 18,000 French troops in the city intervened in the massacre. Their orders from Paris were "do not move", leaving the pieds-noirs vulnerable. Many pied-noirs believed that the massacre was an expression of policy by the FLN and chose to emigrate to France.

At the 1963 trial of Jean Bastien-Thiry, who attempted to assassinate President de Gaulle, defence lawyers referred to the Oran massacre. They said that Bastien-Thiry's act was justified because de Gaulle caused a genocide of Algeria's European population.

Estimates of the total casualties vary widely. This is not unique to the Oran massacre, as there are a multitude of challenges to identifying the amount of civilian killings. There are almost always wide discrepancies in the estimated figures even in small and localised cases.{{Cite web |last=Bellamy |first=Alex, J. |date=24 January 2013 |title=Massacres and Morality: Mass Atrocities in an Age of Civilian Immunity |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/9859 |access-date=27 February 2023 |archive-date=27 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227120819/https://academic.oup.com/book/9859 |url-status=live }}

Dr. Mostefa Naït, the post-independence director of the Oran hospital centre, claimed that 95 persons, including 20 Europeans, were killed (13 from stabbings) and 161 people were injured with local newspapers giving figures in the 30 area in the days afterwards.{{Cite book|last=Zeller|first=Guillaume|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fJdSCwAAQBAJ&q=%221962%22+++sept+mille+morts+%22oran%22&pg=PT75|title=Oran, 5 juillet 1962: Un massacre oublié|date=2013-02-28|publisher=Tallandier|isbn=978-2-84734-885-9|language=fr}}
A group of historians in 2006 suggested 365 were killed.
A local newspaper gives the figure of 1,500 casualties with no detail and no source[http://babelouedstory.com/journaux/journaux_accueil/journaux_accueil.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070527204511/http://babelouedstory.com/journaux/journaux_accueil/journaux_accueil.html|date=2007-05-27}}, CHRONOLOGIE DE LA GUERRE D'ALGÉRIE, LES JOURNAUX D'ALGER and there has been speculation of many thousands of deaths, with the former National Front Leader Jean-Marie Le Pen claiming a figure of 700 deaths.{{Cite book|last=Zeller|first=Guillaume|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fJdSCwAAQBAJ&q=%221962%22+++sept+mille+morts+%22oran%22&pg=PT75|title=Oran, 5 juillet 1962: Un massacre oublié|date=2013-02-28|publisher=Tallandier|isbn=978-2-84734-885-9|language=fr}}

The number killed has been a topic of debate for right-wing individuals in France in particular.