Toussaint Rouge
{{Short description|Civilian attacks in French Algeria}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2023}}
{{Expand French|topic=hist|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox civilian attack
| title = Red All-Saints' Day
{{lang|fr|Toussaint Rouge}}
| image_size =
| partof = Algerian War
| image =
| alt =
| location = French Algeria
| date = 1 November 1954
| time-begin = 00:00
| time-end = 02:00{{cite web |url=http://www.usfca.edu/fac_staff/webberm/algeria.htm#ch1 |title=The Algerian Civil War, 1954–1962: Why Such a Bitter Conflict? |publisher=University of San Francisco |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060423231445/http://www.usfca.edu/fac_staff/webberm/algeria.htm |archive-date=23 April 2006 }}
| timezone =
| type = Bomb attacks & sabotages
| fatalities = 10
| injuries =
| perps = FLN
}}
{{Campaignbox Algerian War of Independence}}
{{lang|fr|Toussaint Rouge}} ({{IPA|fr|tusɛ̃ ʁuʒ|lang}}, "Red All Saints' Day"), also known as {{lang|fr|Toussaint Sanglante}} ("Bloody All-Saints' Day") is a series of 70 attacks{{cite web|title=La Toussaint rouge. 1 November 1954|language=fr
|url=https://jeanyvesthorrignac.fr/wa_files/la_toussaint_rouge.pdf|website=jeanyvesthorrignac.fr|access-date=6 February 2023}} committed by militant members of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) that took place on 1 November 1954—the Catholic festival of All Saints' Day—in French Algeria. It is usually taken as the starting date for the Algerian War which lasted until 1962 and led to Algerian independence from France.
Background
The National Liberation Front was started in June 1954. Members of the CRUA (Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action) and former members of the Special Organization (OS), the paramilitary branch of Messali Hadj's MTLD (Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties), decided to join together and move to armed struggle.{{Cite web |title=Ce jour-là : le 1er novembre 1954, la « Toussaint Rouge » marque le début de la Guerre d’Algérie |url=https://www.jeuneafrique.com/368503/politique/jour-1er-novembre-1954-toussaint-rouge-marque-debut-de-guerre-dalgerie/?utm_source=chatgpt.com |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=JeuneAfrique.com |language=fr-FR}}
Attacks
Between midnight and 2 am on the morning of All Saints' Day, 70 individual attacks were made by FLN militants against police, military and civilian pied-noir targets around French Algeria. Ten people were killed in the coordinated attacks.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/algeria18302000s00stor/page/35|title=Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History|last=Stora |first=Benjamin |date=2001 |location=Ithaca, New York |publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=9780801437151 |edition=Revised and updated|pages=[https://archive.org/details/algeria18302000s00stor/page/35 35–36]|oclc=45304825}}
Reaction in Paris
After hearing of the attacks, François Mitterrand, then Minister of the Interior, dispatched two companies (600 men) of the {{lang|fr|Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité}} (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:
{{blockquote|One does not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the nation, the unity and integrity of the Republic. The Algerian departments are part of the French Republic. They have been French for a long time, and they are irrevocably French.... Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession.{{Cite web |title=A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. Rev. ed |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim220070002 |access-date=2023-10-16 |website=The SHAFR Guide Online}}}}
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 {{lang|fr|Journée des tomates}} (lit: "Day of Tomatoes") on 6 February 1956 under the Mollet government.{{Citation needed|date=October 2019}}
Public reaction
References
{{Reflist}}
{{coord missing|Algeria}}
{{Algerian War}}
Category:Massacres in the Algerian War
Category:November 1954 in Africa
Category:1954 murders in Algeria
Category:Terrorist incidents in Africa in 1954
Category:Terrorist incidents in Algeria in the 1950s
Category:1954 in the Algerian War
Category:Military operations of the Algerian War
Category:20th-century mass murder in Algeria